THE AUTHORS

Daniela Abade was born in Santos, on December 29th of 1971. She left Santos because felt a stranger there. Moved to São Paulo and felt a stranger there too. Traveled around the world and, surprise, felt a stranger. Lived in New York and felt the same. She came back to São Paulo realizing that she was stranger to everywhere. Her first novel After the End, a devastating narrative of a recently deceased character, was published in 2003. In 2004 she had her second novel, Chronics, published and acclaimed by critics: a narrative of 11 characters linked and weaved by their own chronic diseases. Her other two novels Deeper and In another way are ready to be published, but first she's publishing an humorous book The Great Book of Excuses, to breathe among so much fiction and tragedy.

Daniela has had two successful Internet projects: Perfect World, a fake newspaper that twisted news to fit on the perfect world she had in mind; and another literary game, Jail of words.

Florencia was born on December, 24th, 1976.

She has published about 8 books (poetry, non-fiction, narrative, a bit of everything). The most easy to find are the novels: El grito (The scream, Emecé, 2004) and Magic Resort (Emecé-Grupo Planeta, 2007). Some parts of the last one are translated into English on the site: magicresort.com.ar.

Her grandparents were Italian and Spanish. She has lived most of her life in Buenos Aires, and studied Literature at the University of that city.

She spent some months in Canada (perhaps not really Canada, just a little and beautiful bubble for artists near Vancouver). She went three times to Berlin and stayed for a few months, working on literary projects. Lived in London, because of a boyfriend, and then traveled through Latin America writing articles about politics (Mexico, Colombia, El Salvador, Peru, Bolivia).

Claudia Chibici-Revneanu was born in Graz, Austria in 1978. In her self-indulgent moments, she imagines a photo album of her life containing pictures of situations coming from different and incompatible worlds. She sees a huge Sicilian family at an 18th birthday party and herself devouring pasta in the middle; an Indian family at a temple in post Apartheid South Africa and herself kneeling in front of a picture of Sai Baba, half drunk with incense and everyone's devotion; a crowd singing "God Save the Queen" at an English graduation ceremony and herself trying to pretend she is singing along; or a huge Mexican gathering and herself singing along - passionately this time - with the hired Mariachis...

So, she is not sure where she belongs. But she does fit better into these pictures than those of a group of Austrians waltzing across the country side. As to her writing, she has published some short stories and poems in Austrian anthologies, have just finished her first novel (set in London) and is now starting her second (set all around central and southern Mexico).

Max Mauro is truly a foreigner. He was born in Swizerland in 1967. Son of Italian immigrants, was taken to Italy at the age of 3. Back to Friuli, the region of origin of his parents, they lived in three different houses and two villages before finding the right place for the family, but then it was time for him to go to university and he never went back to the village. Since then he lived in Padova, Aberystwyth (Wales), Berlin, Caracas, and finally in Udine. For the next three months he will be in Berlin again, researching on Italian immigration.

Following his interest for migration in 2005 he published a collection of life stories of people who left Italy along with life stories of people who chose Italy as their destination, La mia casa è dove sono felice (My home is where I am Happy), which received a national award. His latest book is a report of a solitary bicycle journey in Patagonia, Patagonia controvento, which was awarded a national literary prize in 2006.

He has worked as a journalist for the radio and the press, and currently contributes to the daily Il Manifesto and the weeklies Diario and Carta.

More information: http://maxmauro.wordpress.com/

David McGuire was born in Hamilton, Canada in 1970 to Scottish parents. He has divided the last 9 years of his life between Ireland and Spain. While living in Spain, the feeling that he was now hiding had taken hold, which he felt was much worse than being lost, so he has recently returned to live just outside of Dublin.

He has published short stories in prose and poetry journals. His main interests surround people who don't fit into the society in which they live, whether by choice or by design. Of late, he has primarily been teaching and working as a translator. Dublin will be a return to the literary scene after being away for a few years, thus allowing him to read his new material.

Matt was born in Sydney (in 1974) but moved around Australia a bit before settling there again 10 years ago. Most of his travels has been through Europe and North America, though he has also been to Japan a few times.

He has been writing seriously since he was about 20 and has had three novels published. The first, Solstice, was a novel in verse about Adelaide in South Australia, inspired by Vikram Seth's The Golden Gate and Pushkin's Eugene Onegin. The second, Nomad, was about a couple of backpackers making their way around the great cities of Europe. The most recent one, A Little Rain on Thursday, just came out in Australia and will also be released in the UK and some European countries over the next few months.

More information: http://mattrubinstein.com.au

Gonzalo Soltero was born in Mexico City, 1973, and has published three books: two of short stories (Crónicas de neón y asfalto) and (Invasión), a story book for children (Tocha) and a novel (Sus ojos son fuego), which was awarded a National Novel Prize in Mexico and will soon see a second edition from Fondo de Cultura Económica.

Currently he writes his next novel with a grant from the Mexican Arts Council (FONCA), and does research about digital narratives with the support of CONACYT. Being a true foreigner he has developed an acute phobia to airports due to a bizarre experiment in commuting between Mexico, Austria and the United Kingdom, where he has lived several years. Gonzalo has extensive road experience in Europe and Latin America, with brief stints in Asia.

More information: http://cerradura.blogspot.com