Contributors

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.

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.

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.

Jonathan Barnes's own poor eyesight, combined with his biologist's curiosity and his frustration at previously published accounts of the Bates method, caused him to write Improve Your Eyesight.

Eleanor Barraclough is a historian and broadcaster, and the author of Beyond the Northlands: Viking Voyages and the Old Norse Sagas. Based at Bath Spa University, she previously held academic positions at Oxford and Durham, and studied Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic at Cambridge. She is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and a BBC New Generation Thinker. She lives in London.

Born in 1972 in Saarbrücken, Rüdiger Barth studied Contemporary History and General Rhetoric in Tübingen. After 15 years as a journalist for the German weekly Stern, he now works as a freelance author.

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, the Cabinet Office and the UK's Corporate Governance Committee, among others.

Nadia Attia is a BFI Network Talent Executive and a published journalist. In 2019 she won the FAB (Faber) prize for fiction and was selected for the London Writers Awards. A graduate of the Curtis Brown novel-writing course, Nadia has been published in Spread the Word's City of Stories anthology, Star Songs and Luna Station Quarterly. Verge is her first novel. @nadia_land_

Tariq Ashkanani is a solicitor and co-host of the writing podcast Page One. His debut novel, Welcome to Cooper, won the Bloody Scotland Debut Award 2022, as well as being shortlisted for both the CWA John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger and Capital Crime Fingerprint Award. His second novel, Follow Me to the Edge, was published in 2022. His upcoming novel, The Midnight King, will be published by Viper in 2025. He lives in Edinburgh with his wife and two sons.

Born in Rabat, Morocco in 1937, Alain Badiou is a leading French philosopher. With Giorgio Agamben and Slavoj Zizek, he has reclaimed for the radical left the concepts of being, truth and the subject. A lifelong communist, he is the author of The Meaning of Sarkozy, Being and Event, Ethics: An Essay on the Understanding of Evil and The Communist Hypothesis.