Dubravka Ugresic is the author of six works of fiction, including The Museum of Unconditional Surrender, and six essay collections, including the NBCC award finalist, Karaoke Culture. In 2016, she was awarded the Neustadt International Prize for Literature for her body of work. She went into exile from Croatia after being labeled a "witch" for her anti-nationalistic stance during the Yugoslav war. She lived in the Netherlands until her passing in March 2023.
Celia Hawkesworth is the translator of numerous works of Serbian, Croatian, and Bosnian literature, including Dubravka Ugresic’s The Culture of Lies for which she won the Heldt Prize for Translation in 1999. She also received the Best Translated Book Award for her translation of EEG by Daša Drndić.
Celia Hawkesworth is the translator of numerous works of Serbian, Croatian, and Bosnian literature, including Dubravka Ugresic’s The Culture of Lies for which she won the Heldt Prize for Translation in 1999. She also received the Best Translated Book Award for her translation of EEG by Daša Drndić.
Esther Allen translates from Spanish and French and has worked to promote a culture of translation in the English-speaking world, most notably by directing the PEN Translation Fund from 2003 to 2010 and helping launch the PEN World Voices Festival.
Sean Cotter teaches at the University of Texas at Dallas and translates Romanian poetry and fiction, including Nichita Stanescu's Wheel with a Single Spoke for which he received the 2013 Best Translated Book Award.
Russell Scott Valentino is the current president of the American Literary Translators Association. He is also a professor at Indiana University, a translator, and the founder of Autumn Hill Books. He previously ran the Iowa Review.