Sara Vanégas Coveña: (1950), has her Ph.D. in Germanic Philology from Munich and her Masters in Education from Cuenca. She has taught at universities in Madrid, Munich, and Bielefeld. She is a poet, essayist, translator, and cultural worker. Among her honors are the Matilde Hidalgo de Prócel Medal awarded by Ecuador’s National Assembly in 2017 and the Jorge Carrera Andrade National Poetry Prize for her collected works in 2000. She has published 13 books of poetry, nine critical anthologies, a novela for children, a dictionary of Ecuadorean authors and dozens of essays.

Raul Zurita: (1950), is one of the great contemporary voices of Latin American poetry. Among his books are Purgatorio (1979), Anteparaiso (1982), Canto a su amor desaparecido (1985), INRI (2003), Las ciudades de agua (2007), Zurita (2011), and La Vida Nueva, version final (2018). He has been the recipient of Guggenheim and Germany’s DAAD fellowships, among others; Chile’s National Prize for Literature, the Pablo Neruda Interamerican Poetry Prize, and Spain’s Reina Sofia Prize. His work has been translated into English, French, German, Swedish, Bengali, Hindi, Chinese, Italian, Russian, Greek and Slovenian.

Daisy Zamora: (1950), is a Nicaraguan writer with numerous books, most recently La violenta espuma (2017), Transito de espumas (2020), and Cerrada luz (2021). She was featured on The Language of Life with Bill Moyers (PBS) and in Las Sandinistas, a documentary film by Jenny Murray. During the Nicaraguan revolution she fought with the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN). She participated in the military operation that occupied the National Palace, seat of Somoza’s Congress, and was director of programming and the voice on clandestine Radio Sandino. During the early years of the Sandinista revolution, she served as Vice Minister of Culture. She teaches at San Francisco State University.

Gioconda Belli: (1948), is a Nicaraguan poet and novelist. She’s had an active political life in her country as a feminist and defender of human rights. Although she was part of the struggle to topple Somoza’s regime and the Sandinista Revolution (1979), she split from the new Sandinismo of Daniel Ortega in 1993. She writes both poetry and novels. Her poetry has received many prizes. Her extraordinary memoir is The Country Under my Skin. She is a member of the Nicaraguan Royal Academy of Letters and Chevalier des les Arts et Letres of France. Her works have been translated into 20 languages.