Donna Leon, born in New Jersey in 1942, has worked as a travel guide in Rome and as a copywriter in London. She taught literature in universities in Iran, China and Saudi Arabia. Commissario Brunetti made her books world-famous. Donna Leon lived in Italy for many years, and although she now lives in Switzerland, she often visits Venice.
Deon Meyer is the internationally acclaimed, prizewinning author of thirteen thrillers, including The Last Hunt, The Woman in the Blue Cloak, Fever, Icarus, Cobra, Seven Days and the Barry Award-winning Thirteen Hours. His books have been published in twenty-seven languages. He lives in Stellenbosch, South Africa.
Lauren Francis-Sharma is also the author of the critically acclaimed novel ’Til the Well Runs Dry, a Black Caucus of the American Library Association honoree and shortlisted for the William Saroyan International Prize. She resides near Washington, DC, with her husband and two children and is the Assistant Director of Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference at Middlebury College.
Kei Miller is a Jamaican poet, essayist and novelist, shortlisted for the Costa Poetry Award and winner of the prestigious Forward poetry prize for his collection The Cartographer Tries to Map a Way to Zion. In 2010, the Institute of Jamaica awarded him the Silver Musgrave medal for his contributions to Literature and in 2018 he was awarded the Anthony Sabga medal for Arts & Letters. He has taught at the Universities of Glasgow, Royal Holloway and Exeter and, in 2019 he was the Ida Beam Distinguished Visiting Professor at the University of Iowa.
Francisco Goldman is an award-winning author of five novels and two non-fiction books. His novels have been finalists for several prizes, including, twice, the Pen/Faulkner Prize. The Long Night of White Chickens was awarded the American Academy’s Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction. The Art of Political Murder won The Index on Censorship T.R. Fyvel Book Award and the WOLA/Duke Human Rights Book Award. The Interior Circuit: A Mexico City Chronicle, published in 2013, was named by the LA Times one of 10 best books of the year and received The Blue Metropolis “Premio Azul” 2017. His novel Say Her Name won the 2011 Prix Femina étranger.
Rabih Alameddine is the author of the novels The Angel of History, An Unnecessary Woman, The Hakawati, Koolaids and I, the Divine, as well as the story collection, The Perv. In 2019, he won the Dos Passos Prize. An Unnecessary Woman was a National Book Award and National Book Critics’ Circle Award finalist. He divides his time between San Francisco and Beirut.
Val McDermid’s best-selling novels have won the Los Angeles Times Book of the Year Award, and the Crime Writers’ Association’s Gold Dagger and Cartier Diamond Dagger Award for outstanding achievement. She is also a multiple finalist for the Edgar Award, including for the Fact Crime nominee Forensics.
Val McDermid’s Festival appearance is generously supported by Scottish Books International.
Samantha Harvey is the author of three novels; Dear Thief, All Is Song and The Wilderness, which won the Betty Trask Prize. Her books have been shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction, the Guardian First Book Award, and the James Tait Black Prize, as well as longlisted for the Man Booker Prize and the Baileys Women’s Prize. She lives in Bath, UK, and teaches creative writing at Bath Spa University.
John Freeman was the editor of Granta until 2013. His books include How to Read a Novelist, Tales of Two Cities, Tales of Two Americas and Maps, his debut collection of poems. He is executive editor at the Literary Hub and teaches at the New School and New York University. His work has appeared in the New Yorker and the Paris Review and has been translated into 20 languages.
Douglas Stuart is a Scottish-American author. His New York Times-bestselling debut novel Shuggie Bain won the 2020 Booker Prize and the Sue Kaufman Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. It was the winner of two British Book Awards, including Book of the Year, and was a finalist for the National Book Award, PEN/Hemingway Award, National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Prize, Kirkus Prize, as well as several other literary awards. Stuart’s writing has appeared in the New Yorker and Literary Hub.
Douglas Stuart’s Festival appearance is generously supported by Scottish Books International.