Contributors

Marta Barone was born in Turin in 1987. She is a translator and a freelance editor. Her novel Sunken City, translated into six languages, was shortlisted for the Strega Prize and won the Vittorini and Fiesole Prizes. She is also the author of several children's books.

Robert Barrington is Professor of Anti-Corruption Practice at the University of Sussex. A leading authority on corruption, he was head of Transparency International for over a decade, during which time he campaigned to introduce the Bribery Act, the UK's Anti-Corruption Strategy and the introduction of Unexplained Wealth Orders. He has advised the Ministry of Justice and the Cabinet Office, among others.

Alessandro Barbero is an Italian historian, novelist and essayist. He won the 1996 Strega Prize, for Bella vita e guerre altrui di Mr. Pyle gentiluomo. Barbero is the author of The Battle, an account of the Battle of Waterloo, The Day of the Barbarians, the story of the Battle of Adrianople, and Charlemagne. He writes for Il Sole 24 Ore and La Stampa, is the editor of Storia d'Europa e del Mediterraneo and regularly appears on television and radio. In 2005, the Republic of France awarded Barbero with the title of Chevalier de l'ordre des Arts et des Lettres.

Patrick Barbier teaches at the West Catholic University in Angers. He specialises in the history of opera. He is the author of Venice: The Enchanted Mirror and The World of the Castrati.

Based at the Pacific and Asian History Division of the Australian National University, Canberra, Geremie R. Barme has also worked with a number of film projects. He is joint editor of the online China Heritage Quarterly.

Luke Barley is a senior advisor on trees and woodland with the National Trust, providing leadership, guidance and support on woodland management across the charity's 250,000-hectare landholding. He is a chartered forester, a professional member of the Arboricultural Association and a trustee of the Ancient Tree Forum, and previously worked as a ranger helping to care for ancient woods in South London, the Lake District and the Peak District. He lives in Sheffield with his family.

One of America's most prestigious fiction writers, Russell Banks is president of the International Parliament of Writers and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His work has been translated into twenty languages and has received numerous international prizes and awards. He lives in upstate New York.

Tomas Bannerhed grew up on a farm in southern Sweden but has lived in Stockholm since the 1990s. He has been a university lecturer and editor, and spent two years on the highly-respected creative writing course, Nordens Författarskola. The Ravens is his first book.

In 2011, The Ravens won the prestigious August Prize in the Best Swedish Fiction Book category. It also won Sweden's major prize for first novels and Stora Läsarpriset, a prize awarded by an online book-group community, its winner selected by readers. The Ravens has been translated into a number of languages including German, French and Dutch, and is to be made into a film.

Paolo Barbaro is a native of Venice who returned to the city after an absence of twenty years and was again enchanted by the city. He is an award-winning author.

Bandi is the Korean word for firefly. It is the pseudonym of an anonymous dissident writer still living in North Korea.

Lester Bangs started out as a record reviewer for Rolling Stone, went on to write for and then edit the magazine Creem, before moving to New York and covering the burgeoning punk scene, writing in daily newspapers and the Village Voice. Bangs died suddenly at the age of 33 in 1982. A biography of Lester Bangs, Let it Blurt was published in 2001.

Gurnek Bains is CEO of YSC, a global consultancy applying psychology to bring about positive change in individuals, teams and culture. Founded in 1990, YSC's mainly multi-national client base comprises over a third of the FTSE100 companies.

Nicholson Baker was born in New York City in 1957 and grew up in Rochester. In his many works of fiction and nonfiction (including Vox, Checkpoint and Human Smoke), he has written about John Updike, about getting up early in the morning, about the inner life of a nine-year-old girl, about a man on his lunch hour, about the beginnings of the Second World War, about sex, and many other subjects too numerous to list here. Travelling Sprinkler is his tenth novel and his fifteenth book. He lives in Maine with his family.

Tina Baker was brought up in a caravan after her mother, a fairground traveller, fell pregnant by a window cleaner. After leaving the bright lights of Coalville, she came to London and worked as a journalist and broadcaster for thirty years. She's probably best known as a television critic for the BBC and GMTV, and for winning Celebrity Fit Club. Her debut novel, Call Me Mummy, was a #1 Kindle bestseller and featured on Lorraine. As well as Call Me Mummy, she is the author of Nasty Little Cuts, Make Me Clean and What We Did in the Storm.