CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE

REBECCA CONNELL

Rebecca Connell is 29 years old and lives in South London. She graduated from Oxford University, where she read English, in 2001. She currently works as a researcher and writer of articles and reports dealing with aspects of youth culture and lifestyle. Her first novel, The Art of Losing, was released in March.

RUDOLPH DELSON

Rudolph Delson’s first novel, Maynard and Jennica, was released in 2008 to a barrage of glowing reviews. The New York Times said of it: ‘One tiny comic gem after another, one pitch-perfect rendering of the modern moment after another.’

PATRICK GALE

PHILIP HENSHER

Philip Hensher’s novels include Kitchen Venom, which won the Somerset Maugham Prize, The Mulberry Empire, which was shortlisted for the WHSmith People’s Choice Award, and The Northern Clemency, which was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize. He is Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Exeter and lives in South London.

YIYUN LI

Yiyun Li grew up in Beijing, and moved to the United States in 1996. She is the recipient of several prizes for her writing and an MFA from the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Li’s stories have been published in The New Yorker, The Paris Review and elsewhere, and her first book, A Thousand Years of Good Prayers, won the Guardian First Book Award. Yiyun Li’s second book, The Vagrants, was described as ‘An enormous achievement’ by Ann Patchett.

CHRISTOPHER NICHOLSON

Christopher Nicholson read English at Cambridge University. He has been a community development worker in Cornwall, and a prize-winning radio documentary producer. He is the author of the novel The Fattest Man in America and the recently released The Elephant Keeper, of which the Observer said ‘Like the elephant at its centre, Nicholson’s book is gentle, profound and sweet-natured…we find ourselves fascinated by a marriage like no other.’ 

JOYCE CAROL OATES

Joyce Carol Oates is a novelist, critic, playwright, poet and author of short stories, and one of America’s most highly respected literary figures. Her best-known books include Black Water, What I Lived For, and Blonde, all of which were nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. She is the Roger S. Berlind Distinguished Professor of Humanities at Princeton University. Her most recent novel, My Sister, My Love was published in 2008.