About us

Born in Locarno, Switzerland, in 1977, he is the author of four poetry collections in Italian, Faura dei morti, Ora prima, Il passo dell’uomo, and Sono due le parole che rimano in ore. In 2016 he published his first English language prose book, London as a Second Language (Humboldt Books), and in 2021 the prose collection Tarmacadam (Nottetempo). He was awarded the Schiller Prize, the Marazza Prize for translation, and was shortlisted for the European Poet of Freedom Prize 2016. He has translated works by W.H. Auden, William Faulkner, W. Somerset Maugham, Denton Welch, Erich Fromm. He’s the main founder of Babel festival and the director of the cultural programs of RSI.

Born in Milan, Italy, in 1970, he is the author of a book of poems, In una notte fortunata (Casagrande, 2010), a play, Dioniso a Tebe (2012), a travelogue, Dispacci dai Caraibi (with photographs by Stefano Graziani, Quodlibet/Humboldt, 2015) and the screenplay for the short movie Il grande freddo (Italy, 2018). He has edited and translated works by Derek Walcott and Joseph Brodsky, among others. He was awarded the Mario Luzi Prize for poetry, and the Marazza Prize for translation. His work has appeared in various newspapers and magazines in Italy, Switzerland, England, and the US. He is the artistic director of Babel festival. www.matteocampagnoli.com

Born in Bellinzona, Switzerland, in 1970. Among his various publications, the collections of prose pieces La terra e il suo satellite (Quodlibet, 2019; Die Erde und ihr Trabant, Brotsuppe, 2019; La Terre et son satellite, La Baconnière, 2022), and Ufficio proiezioni luminose (Quodlibet, 2013; Swiss Literature Prize 2014, published in Germany by Brotsuppe, under the title Amt für Lichtbildprojektion, in 2015), the pamphlet on silence in literature La gag del cappello (Biblioteca cantonale di Bellinzona, 2015) and the chapbook Gotthard Super Express (with a text by Peter Weber and photographs by Laurence Bonvin, Humboldt Books, 2015).

She studied foreign languages and literature (English and Russian) at the University of Pisa. She then spent various years in England, teaching Italian and working as a translator. In 2010 she completed a second-level professional master’s degree in Translation of Post-Colonial Texts at the University of Pisa. She has published translations with various publishing houses and magazines (Metropoli d’Asia, Zona Editore, Humboldt Books, Lo Straniero, ISSA: Italian Studies in Southern Africa). She is the chief operating officer of Babel festival.

Born in Basel, Switzerland, in 1975. His writings include the novels Le Voyage du Salem (Actes Sud, 2024), Le Zoo de Rome (Actes Sud, Arles 2019, winner of the 2020 Swiss Literature Prize), and L’Invisible (Editions Buchet-Chastel, Paris 2009), a book of prose poems, Coléoptères (Editions Samizdat, Genève 2007), and a collection of fictionalised letters, À toi, in collaboration with Kim Thuy (Libre Expression, Montréal 2011, and Liliana Lévi, Paris 2011), translated into several languages. He has contributed to different French, Swiss, and Italian cultural magazines. Having spent many years in Bangladesh, and in various countries of the Middle East, he currently lives in Rome.

Is a London-based Eritrean-Ethiopian writer. Addonia grew up in a refugee camp in Sudan, where he lost his hearing at the age of twelve. He then migrated to Saudi Arabia and to London some 20 years ago. After directing several digital animations and two short films, he is now dedicated to writing. His first collection of short stories, still unpublished in English, has been published in Italian translation under the title Lei è un altro paese by Edizioni Casagrande in 2018.

Prisca Agustoni is a Swiss poet, prose writer, and translator born in 1975 in Lugano. She lives between Switzerland and Brazil, where she teaches Italian and comparative literature. Agustoni writes in Italian, French, Portuguese, and Spanish and often translates authors across these languages. Her work includes poetry collections and prose reflecting multilingual and cultural dialogues. She has been recognized with literary prizes and international publications. Her books explore identity, language, and cross-cultural experience.

Alan is a Swiss performance and installation artist, theatre director and trainer, radio and music producer. As of 2021 he coordinates Luminanza – a reactor for Swiss contemporary drama in the Italian language. He co-won the Swiss prize for the Performing Arts in 2022.
He is based in Ticino, Switzerland.

A Canadian writer born in Batoumi, Georgia, she graduated in journalism at the University of Tbilisi. She subsequently worked as a sports journalist and wrote scripts for documentary films. She is the founder of a new genre in literature, “roman sténographique”, or “stenoromanco”. In this very particular style she wrote eight books in Russian, which have been translated into French, Italian, Czech, Romanian, Portuguese, Norwegian, and Georgian. She is the recipient of the Russkaya Premiya 2015 and was made Journalist Emeritus of Georgia in 2016.

Selma Dabbagh is a British-Palestinian writer and former human rights lawyer born in Dundee, Scotland. Her debut novel Out of It (2011) was inspired by the Gaza airstrikes and received critical recognition. She has published short fiction in outlets such as Granta, The Guardian, and London Review of Books. Dabbagh’s work often explores themes of identity, conflict, and diaspora. Before writing full-time she practiced law in the West Bank. She has also written radio plays broadcast on BBC Radio.

Born in Moscow, Russia, in 1981, he graduated from the Gorky Literature Institute in 2007 and received a Ph.D. in Comparative Literary Studies from the Russian State University for the Humanities in 2011. In 2008 he was awarded the Zhukovsky Prize for young translators from German by the Goethe Institut. From 2011 he has been promoting Swiss literature in Russia. In 2016, together with two colleagues, he started the first Russian spoken word festival at the Stanislavsky Theatre in Moscow (http://post-babel.ru).

Samia Henni is an Algerian-Swiss historian, writer, educator, and architect. She teaches history and theory of architecture and urban development at McGill University. Henni’s scholarship focuses on built environments, colonialism, and military landscapes. She has authored award-winning books like Architecture of Counterrevolution and Deserts Are Not Empty. Her curatorial work includes exhibitions on war, space, and coloniality. Henni has held fellowships and taught at institutions worldwide.

Sophie Hughes is a British literary translator specializing in Spanish-to-English translation. She has translated over 20 novels by contemporary authors like Fernanda Melchor and Alia Trabucco Zerán. Hughes’s translations have been shortlisted or longlisted multiple times for the International Booker Prize and other major literary awards. She holds a master’s degree in Comparative Literature and has lived and worked internationally. Her work has appeared in major publications, and she promotes translation in education and literary communities.

is a Mexico-based literary translator, translating between Arabic, Spanish, and English. He has introduced and translated a number of Latin American authors from Spanish to Arabic, as well as speeches and declarations from the EZLN in Chiapas. He pursued Latin American Studies in the United States (Swarthmore College) and Mexico (UNAM) and currently teaches Arabic literature in Spanish translation at the Colegio de México in Mexico City. The Arabic translation of José Emilio Pacheco’s Las batallas en el desierto (Palestine, 2016) was his first novel-length work.

Qasem Waleed is a Palestinian physicist and writer based in Gaza. He has two bachelor’s degrees: a BSc in Physics from the Islamic University of Gaza University of Gaza (2021) and a B.A. in English literature from the Al-Azhar University of Gaza (2024). His work is inspired by the physics and mathematics concepts and linking them to everyday life in Gaza. His work is published in Al Jazeera, Mondoweiss, Mondoweiss, Specimen, and We Are Not Numbers, among others.