Born 1980 in Thalwil, Switzerland, Samira El-Maawi is a qualified psychological counsellor and writes poetry, prose and screenplays. Her debut novel "In My Father's Home the Earth Smells Like Heaven" was published in 2020 to great critical acclaim and it is in its third edition. Her radio play "Snow" was nominated for the national SONOHR Radio & Podcast Festival 2020. Her first children's book, "Lela and the Fabulous Mrs Farah" was published by Gulliver von Beltz und Gelberg in 2025. El-Maawi explores issues of belonging and social labelling in her work, her poetic prose weaving threads between microcosms and her diverse characters' lived experiences. She leads workshops on diversity and writing and co-facilitates writing workshops for people in crisis. She lives in the canton of Zurich. Yana Ellis is a Bulgarian-born freelance translator working from German and Bulgarian into English. She holds an MA in Translation from the University of Bristol. Yana is drawn to narratives that illuminate the margins and explore issues of identity, immigration, and the representation of the ‘other’. She was chosen as one of the American Literary Translators' Association (ALTA) Virtual Travel Fellows for 2022 and was shortlisted for the 2022 John Dryden Translation Competition. Her work has appeared in The Trinity journal of Literary translation, No man's Land, SAND journal and The Common. Yana is currently working on her first full length book translation of Zdravka Evtimova’s Wolf Sanctuary [working title] which received PEN Translates award. The book will be published by Héloïse Press in the UK in 2025. In July 2024 Yana was one of three literary translators in residence at Sofia Literature and Translation House as part of Creative Europe's Culture Moves Europe programme. Elīna Brasliņa studied Printmaking and Graphic Arts at the Art Academy of Latvia. Since 2014 she has illustrated more than twenty titles, including Moon Juice by Kate Wakeling, which was her international debut. She has been nominated for numerous awards in Latvia, and has won the Zelta Ābele (Golden Apple Tree) National Prize for Book Art twice. She was awarded the International Jānis Baltvilks Prize in 2017.You can visit Elīna’s website and see more of her illustrations here: www.elinabraslina.com
