James Butler is a writer and broadcaster, interested in left-wing thought and movements, especially in Europe, across the twentieth century and today. He co-founded Novara Media, where he is senior editor and presents Novara FM, a weekly radio show bringing together the intellectual and political left, and has written extensively on contemporary politics for publications in the UK and internationally.
Theatre Credits Include: The Treatment (Almeida), A Profoundly, Affectionate, Passionate, Devotion to Someone (-noun) (Royal Court), Now We Are Here (Young Vic), Les Blancs (National Theatre), Hapgood (Hampstead Theatre), The Whipping Man (Theatre Royal Plymouth), The Rise and Shine of Comrade Fiasco (Gate Theatre), Banksy: The Room in the Elephant (Tobacco Factory), You Know Who You Are (Talawa Theatre), Banksy: The Room in the Elephant Sucker Punch (Royal Court), Family Man (Stratford East), Top Dog Under Dog (Sheffield Crucible), Ticker Tape And V Signs (7:84 Theatre Co), Welcome Home Jacko (BTC New York), Moby Dick (Royal Exchange Manchester), God’s Second in Command (Royal Court), Black Poppies (National Studio).
Television Credits Include: Melrose (Showtime), Hatton Garden (ITV), Silent Witness, Grantchester, Death In Paradise, The Interceptor, Common Ground, Holby City, Eastenders, Family Affairs, The Bill, Absolutely Fabulous, Born to Run, Glam Metal Detectives, Shall I Be Mother, Murphy’s Mob, Lenny Henry Show, Honeymoon, Just Like Mohicans, Radical Chambers, I Love Keith Allen, Making Out.
Film Credits Include: We Die Young, In the Heart of the Sea Zombies, Til Death The Imitators, Driven, Absolute Beginners, Playing Away, Cresta Run and White Mischief.
Giles’ theatre career includes seasons at the RSC: Twelfth Night, A Christmas Carol; Wolf Hall, Bring Up The Bodies (also West End & Broadway); The Two Gentlemen of Verona, The Merchant of Venice, Talk of the City; time at the NT: This House (also West End/Chichester), After The Dance; as well as An Ideal Husband, The Way of the World, The Music Man (Chichester), Travesties, The Importance of Being Earnest, The Wizard of Oz (Birmingham Rep), Waste (Almeida), Macbeth, Twelfth Night, Cymbeline, Much Ado About Nothing, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Merry Wives of Windsor (Regent’s Park). His fleeting appearances on television include: The Musketeers, Mr Selfridge, Foyle’s War, Stuart: A Life Backwards, Friends and Crocodiles,Sentenced, Karaoke, Wycliffe, Is That All There Is?, Scarlet and Black. His book – Dramatic Adventures in Rhetoric – co-authored with Philip Wilson, is published by Oberon Books.
Paul Gravett is a London-based freelance journalist, curator, lecturer, writer and broadcaster, who has worked in comics publishing and promotion since 1981. Paul is the author of different books such as Mangasia: The Definitive Guide to Asian Comics (2017) or Comics Unmasked: Art and Anarchy in the UK (2014) and he is a passionate specialist of comics and cartoons. Since 2003, Paul has been the director of Comica the London International Comics Festival.
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Lisa Allardice is editor of The Guardian Review, for which she interviewed Leïla Slimani, Margaret Atwood, Alice Munro or Deborah Levy, among others. She was a judge for the Women's Prize for Fiction 2008.
Antonia Byatt was director of Cheltenham Literature Festival 2016 and previously was director, Literature and SE, at Arts Council England based in Cambridge. Before joining Arts Council England, Antonia was director of the Women’s Library at London Metropolitan University, an academic research library and cultural centre containing the largest collection of women’s history in the UK. Prior to joining the library, Antonia was head of literature at Southbank Centre, which involved overseeing the literature programme and the poetry library. She has been a trustee of the Bishopsgate Institute and Buckinghamshire New University and is currently a trustee of First Story. She is now the Director of English PEN.
Ellie Steel is a senior editor at Harvill Secker, an imprint of Penguin Random House UK, where she works with writers including Sheila Heti, Karl Ove Knausgaard, Édouard Louis and Olivier Rolin.
Iko Chérie is the moniker of French musician Marie Merlet who, after playing bass in Monade alongside Laetitia Sadier for several albums and tours around the world, has now settled in London where she is recording with her own girl group, as well as part of electronic duo ZOOEY and psychedelic cumbia collective Malphino. You can also hear her monthly on Soho Radio for her Little Trouble Girls show which is dedicated to female artists with no genre restrictions and follows Marie’s eclectic taste in music.
https://www.mixcloud.com/sohoradio/little-trouble-girls-07042018/
Jakuta Alikavazovic is a French writer of Bosnian and Montenegrin origins. She was born in Paris, where she studied at the Ecole Normale Superieure and where she now lives. She has lived in In the UK and in Italy, where she was a resident at the Villa Medicis in Rome in 2013-2014.
Her first novel, Corps Volatils (2008) won the Goncourt Prize for best first novel and her second and third novels, Le Londres-Luxor (2010) and La Blonde et Le Bunker (2012) won prizes in France and Italy. Her new novel, L’Avancee de la Nuit, is a lead title of the Rentree 2017 with L’Olivier in France. She is also the translator of Ben Lerner and of the essays of David Foster Wallace and teaches at la Sorbonne Nouvelle.
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Bidisha is a British writer, film-maker and broadcaster for BBC TV and radio, Channel 4 news and Sky News and is a trustee of the Booker Prize Foundation. She specialises in international human rights, social justice, gender and the arts and offers political analysis and cultural diplomacy tying these interests together, usually for the British Council. She also does outreach work in UK prisons, refugee charities and detention centres and her fifth book, Asylum and Exile: Hidden Voices of London, is based on this work. Bidisha is the chair of judges for the 2018 Forward Prizes for poetry and has just directed her first short film, An Impossible Poison. As a poet, Bidisha has been published by Saqi Books, Seagull Books, Wasafiri magazine and Young MWA magazine and performed internationally.