Contributors

Nick Davidson is a documentary filmmaker and amateur geologist. He lives in London.

Ian Davidson worked for the Financial Times for many years (among other things as Paris correspondent and as chief foreign affairs columnist). His earlier Voltaire in Exile (2004), was called 'powerful and illuminating … revealing and disturbing' by the Sunday Times.

Dan Davies is a former regulatory economist at the Bank of England and analyst for a number of investment banks. His career has seen him tackle all manner of financial crookedness, including the LIBOR and FX scandals, the collapse of Anglo Irish Bank and the Swiss Nazi gold scandal. He has written for the Financial Times and the New Yorker among other publications.

Liz Dávid-Barrett is a professor at the University of Sussex, and Director of the Centre for the Study of Corruption. She is also Deputy Director of Research for the UK government's Governance and Integrity-Anti-Corruption Evidence programme and frequently appears on high-profile political programmes such as Newsnight and Big Questions as an expert voice on corruption.

Liz previously worked as a journalist for the Economist and the Financial Times, and is the host of Kickback: The Global Anticorruption podcast, where she interviews academics and practitioners working on corruption from around the world.

Kate Daly is the founder of the award-winning separation service amicable, a leading divorce expert and a qualified relationship counsellor. She was an outspoken advocate for the campaign to introduce no-fault divorce in England and Wales in 2022, and is the host of The Divorce Podcast. amicable divorce is her first book.

Born in 1949, Didier Daeninckx lives in Paris. Recognised as France's leading left-wing mystery writer, his work is translated into all European languages. His 1984 novel Murder in Memoriam forced the French government to try Nazi collaborators, led to a life of imprisonment for Paul Touvier and made President Mitterrand declare 16 July a day of national reflection on fascism and racism.

Laura Dave was born in New York City and grew up in Scarsdale, New York. She graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a BA in English, and went on to gain an MFA from the University of Virginia's creative writing program. She was a Henry Hoyns Fellow and a recipient of the Tennessee Williams Scholarship. She is the national and international bestselling author of Eight Hundred Grapes, London is the City in America, The Divorce Party, The First Husband, Hello, Sunshine and The Last Thing He Told Me. Her fiction and essays have appeared in The New York Times, Oprah Magazine, Glamour, Redbook, The Huffington Post and The New York Observer. In 2008, Cosmopolitan named her a 'Fun and Fearless Phenom of the Year'. She is married to Oscar-winning screenwriter Josh Singer, with whom she resides in Los Angeles, California.

Joshua Paul Dale is a Professor in the Department of English Literature and Culture at Chuo University in Tokyo. Since moving to Japan in the 1990s, Dale has pioneered the field of cuteness studies, and is the co-editor of The Aesthetics and Affects of Cuteness, and edited 'Cute Studies', a special issue of The East Asian Journal of Popular Culture. Dale has been featured as an expert on cuteness by media outlets such as the New York Times, CNN, National Geographic, the Guardian, The Cut, Refinery29 and Discover Magazine.

Sloane Crosley is the author of the New York Times bestselling essay collections, I Was Told There'd Be Cake and How Did You Get This Number, as well as the bestselling novel, The Clasp. Her work has appeared in the Guardian, New Yorker, Esquire, Vogue, New York Times Magazine and on NPR. She was named as a Guggenheim Fellow in 2025, and is a contributing editor at Interview Magazine and Vanity Fair. She lives in New York.

Jayne County is an American singer, playwright, actress and artist. She was the vocalist of Wayne County & the Electric Chairs and went on to become rock's first openly transgender singer. Her most recent exhibition was Bastet, Goddess of Wet Dreams at the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center in February 2020.

Peter Culshaw was once described by Malclm McLaren as 'the Indiana Jones of world music'. His assignments have included reports from the Amazon and Siberia. He has profiled many leading classical, world and jazz musicians from the Observer andDaily Telegraph, as well as BBC radio. He is currently music editor for theartsdesk.com

Mark Curtis is an author, journalist and consultant: his previous books include Web of Deceit and Unpeople. He is a former Research Fellow at the Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House) and was until recently Director of the World Development Movement. He has worked in the field of international development for 14 years, including as Head of Global Advocacy and Policy at Christian Aid and Head of Policy at ActionAid.