Name: Rajaa Alsanea Country: Saudi Arabia

Alsanea was born in Saudi Arabia in 1981. She graduated from the College of Dentistry at King Saud University in Riyadh in 2005. Currently, she is a postgraduate student at the University of Illinois at Chicago, Department of Endontics. Her first novel Girls of Riyadh was the number one Arabic bestseller on www.neelwafurat.com, the Middle Eastern equivalent of amazon.com in 2005. Alsanea was voted Intellectual Figure of the Year in the Arab world for 2006 by readers of the top Arabic online newspaper www.elaph.com. The novel was reprinted seven times in two years in Arabic. It has been translated intomore than 20languages so far and hit thebestsellers lists in many countries including Lebanon, Bahrain, Kuwait, Italy and Germany.

Sampson is editor of Poetry Review, the oldest and most widely-read poetry journal in the UK, which is published by the Poetry Society. She is the first woman editor since Muriel Spark, who took the role from 1947-9. She has published fifteen books - poetry, philosophy of language and books on the writing process - of which the most recent are her latest poetry collection, Common Prayer (Carcanet, 2007), and Writing: Self and Reflexivity (Macmillan 2005). Her awards include the Newdigate Prize; 'Trumpeldor Beach' was short-listed for the 2006 Forward Prize; she has eight books in translation. She also contributes to The Guardian, The Irish Times and other publications.

Name: Maya Jaggi Country:

Jaggi is an award-winning journalist and critic and a leading voice in the British media on postcolonial literatures and cultures. She is currently a profile writer and regular reviewer for The Guardian. Jaggi has edited an international anthology of short stories by women who span continents (Random House USA), and has contributed to the Salon.com Reader's Guide (2000), Black British Culture and Society (2000), The Guardian Year (1999) and The Bloomsbury Guide to Women's Literature (1992). She is a contributing editor of Wasafiri magazine on literature and film. She is also an executive member of the writers' association English PEN.

Name: May Menassa Country: Lebanon

Menassa was born in Beirut in 1939. She holds a postgraduate diploma in French literature. After a long career in TV (1960-1968) Menassa joined the staff of Annahar newspaper covering cultural events and arts. The terrible experience of war inspired her to write five novels in Arabic and an illustrated book for children in French (Dans le jardin de Sarah). Since 1985 she has been the chief editor of the women’s magazine Jamalouki (Your Beauty).