Jan Brokken, born in Leiden in 1949, is a Dutch writer. He has published novels, travel books, narrative essays and works of literary non-fiction. After beginning his career in journalism, he developed a body of work centered on places, individual lives, European history and cultural memory.

Maurizio de Giovanni was born in Naples in 1958. He is a novelist, screenwriter, playwright and television writer. He lives and works in Naples. His books have inspired the television series I Bastardi di Pizzofalcone, Il commissario Ricciardi and Mina Settembre. His most recent work is Figli - per i Bastardi di Pizzofalcone, published by Einaudi in 2026.

Nicola Gardini, born in 1965, is a writer, poet, essayist, Latinist, translator and painter. He teaches Italian and Comparative Literature at the University of Oxford. He has published novels, poetry collections, literary essays, autobiographical works and translations, while also pursuing a career in painting.

William Oldroyd is a British director and screenwriter. He has worked in theatre, opera and film. He was director-in-residence at the Young Vic in London and has collaborated with the Royal Shakespeare Company. Before directing feature films, he directed short films and stage productions, including contemporary adaptations of classic texts.

Yasmina Reza, born in Paris in 1959, is a playwright, novelist, screenwriter, director and actress. She is the author of plays, novels, short prose works, screenplays and works for cinema. Her best-known plays include Conversations après un enterrement, Art, L’homme du hasard, Trois versions de la vie, Une pièce espagnole, Le dieu du carnage and Bella figura.

Walter Siti was born in Modena in 1947 and lives in Milan. He is a writer, essayist, literary critic and television writer. He has taught at the universities of Pisa, Cosenza and L’Aquila. He was professor of Contemporary Italian Literature and edited the complete works of Pier Paolo Pasolini for Mondadori’s “I Meridiani” series.

Francesco Piccolo, born in Caserta in 1964, is a writer and screenwriter. He has published novels, short stories, and essays including Storie di primogeniti e figli unici, Momenti di trascurabile felicità, and Il desiderio di essere come tutti, winner of the Premio Strega in 2014.

Gianfranco Fini, born in Bologna in 1952, is an Italian politician. He served as secretary of the Movimento Sociale Italiano from 1987 to 1995 and later founded and led Alleanza Nazionale. He held government positions including Vice President of the Council of Ministers and Minister of Foreign Affairs.

Fausto Bertinotti, born in Milan in 1940, is an Italian politician, trade unionist, and essayist. After working within the CGIL trade union, he served as secretary of the Partito della Rifondazione Comunista from 1994 to 2006. He was Presidente della Camera dei Deputati from 2006 to 2008.

Chiara Gamberale, born in Rome in 1977, is a writer and radio and television host. She debuted with the novel Una vita sottile (1999), followed by books such as La zona cieca, Le luci nelle case degli altri, Per dieci minuti, and Qualcosa.

Valerio Magrelli, born in Rome in 1957, is a poet, essayist, translator, and academic. He made his debut in 1980 with the poetry collection Ora serrata retinae, followed by works such as Nature e venature, Esercizi di tiptologia, and Il sangue amaro.

Joyce Carol Oates, born in 1938 in Lockport, New York, is a writer, essayist, and academic. The author of an extensive body of work including novels, short stories, essays, and poetry, she has published titles such as Them (National Book Award, 1970), Blonde, We Were the Mulvaneys and The Falls.

Katie Kitamura, born in 1979 in Sacramento, California, is a writer and academic. She debuted with the novel The Longshot (2009), followed by Gone to the Forest and A Separation (2017), a finalist for the Folio Prize.

Olivier Guez, born in Strasbourg in 1974, is a French writer and journalist. He has contributed to Le Monde, The New York Times, and Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. He is the author of La scomparsa di Josef Mengele, winner of the Prix Renaudot.

Ira Sachs, born in Memphis in 1965, is an American film director and screenwriter. His independent films include Forty Shades of Blue, Love Is Strange, Little Men, and Passages.

Colum McCann, born in Dublin in 1965, is a writer and journalist. He has published novels and short stories including This Side of Brightness, Dancer, Zoli, and Let the Great World Spin, winner of the National Book Award.

Stuart Klawans is an American film critic and essayist. He was a long-time contributor to The Nation and writes for publications such as The New York Times, Film Comment, and Sight & Sound.

Giuseppe Tornatore, born in Bagheria in 1956, is a film director and screenwriter. After his debut with Il camorrista (1986), he achieved international recognition with Nuovo Cinema Paradiso, which won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1990.

Paolo Di Paolo, born in Rome in 1983, is a writer, essayist, and journalist. He made his debut with Nuovi cieli, nuove carte (2010) and has published novels including Mandami tanta vita (Strega Prize finalist), Una storia quasi solo d’amore, and Romanzo senza umani.

Brian Selznick, born in 1966, is an American writer and illustrator. After debuting with The Houdini Box (1991), he gained widespread success with La straordinaria invenzione di Hugo Cabret (2007), winner of the Caldecott Medal and adapted into a film by Martin Scorsese.

Carlo Verdone, born in Rome in 1950, is an actor, director, and screenwriter. He made his film debut in 1980 with Un sacco bello, which earned him the David di Donatello for Best New Director. He has directed and starred in over twenty films.

Eraldo Affinati, born in Rome in 1956, is a writer, teacher, and pedagogue. He debuted with the novel Veglia d’armi. L’uomo di Tolstoj (1992), followed by narrative and essay works such as Campo del sangue, La città dei ragazzi, Berlin, Vita di Vita, and L’uomo del futuro, dedicated to Don Lorenzo Milani.

Nicholas Boggs, born in 1973 in Washington, D.C., is a writer, critic, and academic. In 2018, he co-edited the reissue of James Baldwin’s Little Man, Little Man and in 2025 published Baldwin: A Love Story, a biography that was a finalist for the Kirkus Prize.

A. M. Homes, born in 1961, is an American writer and screenwriter. She debuted at the age of 19 with the novel Jack (1989), followed by In a Country of Mothers, The End of Alice, Music for Torching, This Book Will Save Your Life, and May We Be Forgiven, winner of the 2013 Women’s Prize for Fiction.

Benjamin Taylor, born in 1952, is an American writer, critic, and university professor. He debuted with the novel Tales Out of School (1995), followed by The Book of Getting Even (2008).

Alessandro Piperno, born in Rome in 1972, is a novelist, essayist, and literary critic. He debuted in 2005 with Con le peggiori intenzioni, an editorial success and finalist for the Premio Viareggio.

Richard Ford, born in 1944 in Jackson, Mississippi, is considered one of the greatest contemporary American writers. With Independence Day (1995; Feltrinelli, 1996), he won the two most prestigious American literary awards, the PEN/Faulkner Award and the Pulitzer Prize.

Luciano Violante, born in 1941, is a jurist, university professor, and politician. A former magistrate, he participated in trials against terrorism in the 1970s. In 2024, he released “Ma io ti ho sempre salvato. La maschera della morte e il nomos della vita.”

Pier Ferdinando Casini, born in 1955, is an Italian politician. First elected to the Camera dei Deputati in 1983, he served as Presidente della Camera from 2001 to 2006.

Roberto Andò, born in Palermo in 1959, is a film director, screenwriter, and writer. After working with Francesco Rosi, Federico Fellini, and Michael Cimino, he debuted as a director with the documentary Diario senza date (1995) and the feature film Il manoscritto del principe (2000).

Isabella Rossellini, born in 1952, is an Italian-American actress and director. After beginning her career as a model and the face of Lancôme, she gained international fame with Blue Velvet (1986) and Wild at Heart (1990), both directed by David Lynch. She has worked with directors such as Robert Zemeckis, Peter Weir, Guy Maddin, and Abel Ferrara.

Maurizio Molinari, born in Rome in 1964, is a journalist and essayist. He began his career at La Voce Repubblicana in 1984 and joined La Stampa in 1997, where he served as correspondent from Brussels, New York, and Jerusalem.

Stefano Albertini is Director of the Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò and Professor in the Department of Italian Studies at NYU. His work focuses on Italian literature, politics, culture, and cinema.

American journalist and historian, born in 1964, she studied at Yale and Oxford. She began her career as a correspondent in Warsaw for The Washington Post, covering the post-Soviet transition in Eastern Europe.

Born in 1966, he is an American film director who made his debut with the documentary The Cruise (1998). His films include Capote (2005), Moneyball (2011), and Foxcatcher (2014), which earned him two Academy Award nominations for Best Director.

Film director and screenwriter, born in New York in 1986, he studied at the AFI Conservatory. He made his feature debut with Hereditary (2018), followed by Midsommar (2019) and Beau Is Afraid (2023).

Born in Venice in 1944, he is a philosopher and university professor. After earning a degree in philosophy with a thesis on Lukács, he taught at several Italian universities and founded the Faculty of Philosophy at the Vita-Salute San Raffaele University.

Filippo Uttinacci, known as Fulminacci, was born in Rome in 1997. He released his debut album La vita veramente in 2019, winning the Targa Tenco award for best debut work.

Born in 1986, she lives between Paris and Berlin. She studied art history, dramaturgy, and philosophy, and writes for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and other French and German cultural outlets.

Born in Barbastro, Spain, in 1962, he is a poet, novelist, and essayist. He has worked as a literature teacher and regularly contributes to El País and ABC Cultural.

Born in Rome in 1974, he began his literary career as a poet and published his first novel, La casa degli sguardi, in 2018. It was followed by Tutto chiede salvezza (2020), which won the Premio Strega Giovani, and Sempre tornare (2021).

Melania G. Mazzucco, born in Rome in 1966, is a novelist, essayist, and screenwriter. She made her debut with Il bacio della Medusa (1996), followed by Lei così amata (2000) and Vita (2003), which won the Strega Prize.

Architecture graduate at Florence University, in 1984 Sandro Veronesi published his first and only collection of poems entitled Il resto del cielo (The Remainder of the Sky”) and in 1988 his first novel Per dove parte questo treno allegro (“For Where this Merry Train is Leaving”), followed by Gli sfiorati (“The Skimmed”, 1990) and Venite venite B-52 (“Come, Come, B-52s”, 1995).

Philosopher and historian of African culture, over the years he has been involved in literature and the philosophy of language as well as racism, identity and moral theory, from the perspective of a liberal humanism and a cosmopolitan spirit.

Laurie Anderson, born in Glen Ellyn, Illinois in 1947, is a multimedia artist, musician, and performer. She rose to international fame with O Superman (1981) and has released experimental albums such as Big Science, Mister Heartbreak, and Landfall (with Kronos Quartet).

Nicole Krauss, born in New York in 1974, is a novelist and short story writer. She debuted with Man Walks into a Room(2002), followed by The History of Love (2005), Great House (2010), and Forest Dark (2017). In 2020, she published the story collection To Be a Man, which won the Wingate Literary Prize.

Gabriele Salvatores, born in Naples in 1950, is a film director and screenwriter. After his early career at the Teatro dell’Elfo, he made his cinematic debut with Dream of a Summer Night (1983).

Siri Hustvedt, born in 1955 in Northfield, Minnesota, is a novelist and essayist. Her fiction includes What I Loved (2003), The Sorrows of an American (2008), The Blazing World (2014), and several essay collections.

Pupi Avati, born in Bologna in 1938, is a film director, screenwriter, and producer. His career spans over five decades, marked by a wide range of genres.

Jonathan Safran Foer, born in Washington, D.C. in 1977, is a novelist, short story writer, and essayist. He debuted in 2002 with Everything Is Illuminated, followed by Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (2005) and Here I Am (2016).

Garth Risk Hallberg, born in Louisiana in 1978, debuted with A Field Guide to the North American Family (2007) and achieved international recognition with City on Fire (2015), a multi-character novel set in 1970s New York City.

Joshua Cohen, born in Atlantic City in 1980, is a novelist, essayist, and critic. He is the author of Witz (2010), Book of Numbers (2015), and Moving Kings (2017).

Nicola Lagioia, born in Bari in 1973, debuted with the novel Tre sistemi per sbarazzarsi di Tolstoj (2001), followed by Occidente per principianti and Riportando tutto a casa (Viareggio Prize 2010).