2026

Sung-il Kim is a trailblazing South Korean novelist whose work bridges fantasy, science-fiction, and horror with literary ambition. He began fiction-writing career in his forties. His The Knight of La Mancha won him Excellence Award, Korean SF Awards among others. His other key works include Blood of the Old Kings and Blood for the Undying Throne. These novels showcase epic fantasy landscapes, moral complexity and mythic resonance, earning him recognition in the Korean speculative-fiction scene and translation interest internationally. Beyond his novels, Kim engages in dialogue about genre boundaries, the role of fantasy in contemporary culture, and Korean storytelling’s global horizon.

Surajit Sharma is an Associate Professor in English at the Jagannath Barooah University, Jorhat. He is an alumnus of the Hemalata Handiqui Memorial Institute, Jorhat, J.B. College, Jorhat, Ramjas College and the University of Delhi. He obtained his PhD, on Popular Fiction from Tezpur University.

He has been teaching at the UG and PG levels more than 30 years. Apart from his academic interests in English literature, and language, he has been keenly interested in other aspects of culture and society including music and cinema.

He has translated both short stories and poetry from English to Assamese and his works have been published, among others, by the Asom Sahitya Sabha.

Susana Sanches Arins is a Galician writer and critic. For the uninitiated, Galicia is an autonomous community in Spain. Arins works as a Professor of Secondary Education specialised in Spanish Language and Literature. She is mainly known for her collections of poetry as well as books that blur the boundaries between poetry and prose. Seique, loosely translated as Hearsay, has brought her to limelight. It was translated into Spanish in 2019 and selected by the association of Madrid booksellers as their book of the year. It is a rare recognition for an author being translated from Galician. 

Talmiz Ahmad is a former Indian Ambassador to Saudi Arabia besides serving in Indian missions in several West Asian countries, the US and the UK. He has published four books – Reform in the Arab World: External Influences and Regional Debates (2005); Children of Abraham at War: The Clash of Messianic Militarisms (2010), The Islamist Challenge in West Asia: Doctrinal and Political Competitions after the Arab Spring (2013), and West Asia at War: Repression, Resistance and Great Power Games. He also writes regularly in Indian and West Asian media and lectures on politics and economics of West Asia, Eurasia and the Indian Ocean, political Islam and energy security. In 2011, the Saudi Government conferred on him the King Abdul Aziz Medal First Class for his contribution to the promotion of Indo-Saudi relations. Currently, he holds the Ram Sathe Chair in International Studies, Symbiosis International University, Pune.

Tasdiq Md Ghaznavi is a graduate of the Assam Agricultural University with specialisation in Tea Husbandry and Technology. He has been a Consultant, Tea Programme, with Solidaridad Network since 2013

Tashi Chophel is a poet and a bureaucrat from Sikkim. How To Collect A Folk Tale is his first book of poems. His poems have featured in several leading publications and anthologies, including Eastern Muse – Poems from the East and Northeast India, Pratik, Sahitya Akademi’s Modern English Poetry, etc.

Trisha De Niyogi is the Chief Operating Officer and Director at Delhi-based Niyogi Books. Her other professional interests focus on education sector and cultural heritage of India. She is currently building an imprint for Children and Young Adult literature, which is global as well as local. She is also looking to create a curated list of international adult fiction for the Indian subcontinent.

Uttam Sinha is India’s top commentators on trans-boundary water issues. After a doctoral degree from Jawaharlal Nehru University, he joined the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses in 2001 where he heads the non-traditional security centre and is the managing editor of Strategic Analysis, the institute’s flagship journal, published by Routledge.
He was a senior fellow at the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library from 2018-20, and an academic visitor at the Harvard Kennedy School in 2015.
His works include Trial by Water, and Indus Basin Uninterrupted.

Uxue Alberdi is a Basque writer and bertsolari. She has written short stories, novels, essays, literary chronicles and children´s literature. She has received numerous awards including the Euskadi Literature Prize on two occasions, one in the category of children´s literature for Besarkada and another in the essay category for Kontrako eztarritik (Reverso). Some of her most important books are Jenisjoplin (novel), Kontrako eztarritik (essay), Dendaostekoak (literary chronicle) and Hetero (short stories). Her books are translated into Spanish, Catalan and English.

Having travelled across India, New Delhi-born Vasundhara’s experiences channelled into stories and art from a young age. She started acting at the age of 17. She has been a part of several award-winning films, playing a variety of roles, including female lead and villain. Her debut novel The Accused is crime thriller set in Mumbai and Chennai. It explores the current state of the world where social media is everything.  Vasundhara also writes poems, enjoys painting and design.