Michel Houellebecq

Michel Houellebecq (French pronunciation: [miʃɛl wɛlˈbɛk]), born Michel Thomas, 26 February 1958—or 1956 (birth certificate)—on the French island of Réunion, is a controversial and award-winning French author, filmmaker and poet. To admirers he is a writer in the tradition of literary provocation that reaches back to the Marquis de Sade and Baudelaire; to detractors he is a peddler of sleaze and shock. Having written poetry and a biography of the horror writer H. P. Lovecraft he brought out his first novel Extension du domaine de la lutte in 1994.Les particules élémentaires followed in 1998 and Plateforme in 2001. After a publicity tour for this book, which led to his being taken to court for inciting racial hatred, he went to Ireland to write. He lived in Ireland for many years, and now lives in Spain.

Boris Vian

Boris Vian (10 March 1920 – 23 June 1959) was a French polymath: writer, poet, musician, singer, translator, critic, actor, inventor and engineer. He is best remembered today for his novels. Those published under the pseudonym Vernon Sullivan were bizarre parodies of criminal fiction, highly controversial at the time of their release. Vian's other fiction, published under his real name, featured a highly individual writing style with numerous madeup words, subtle wordplay and surrealistic plots. L'Écume des jours (Froth on the Daydream) is the best known of these works, and one of the few translated into English.

Vian was also an important influence on the French jazz scene. He served as liaison for Hoagy Carmichael, Duke Ellington and Miles Davisin Paris, wrote for several French jazz-reviews (Le Jazz Hot, Paris Jazz) and published numerous articles dealing with jazz both in the United States and in France. His own music and songs enjoyed popularity during his lifetime, particularly the anti-war song "Le Déserteur" (The Deserter).

Arkady and Boris Strugatsky

The brothers Arkady (Russian: Арка́дий; August 28, 1925 – October 12, 1991) and Boris (Russian: Бори́с; born April 14, 1933) Strugatsky (Russian: Струга́цкий; alternate spellings:Strugatskiy, Strugatski, Strugatskii) are Soviet-Russian science fiction authors who collaborated on their fiction.

The Strugatsky brothers (Бра́тья Струга́цкие or simply Струга́цкие), as they are usually called, although also known as "Абээ́сы" ("Abeesy", from ABS, Arkadiy and Boris Strugatsky) in Russian, are perhaps the best-known Soviet science fiction writers with a well-developed fan base. Their early work was influenced by Ivan Yefremov. Their famous novel Piknik na obochine has been translated into English as Roadside Picnic in 1977 and was filmed by Andrei Tarkovsky under the title Stalker.

Several other of their works were translated into German, French, English, and Italian but did not receive the same magnitude of the critical acclaim granted them by their Russian audiences. The Strugatsky brothers, however, were and still are popular in many countries, including Poland, Hungary, former Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, and Germany, where most of their works were available in both East and West Germany.
The brothers were Guests of Honour at the 1987 World Science Fiction Convention, held in Brighton, England.

Dmitry Glukhovsky

Dmitry A. Glukhovsky (Russian: Дми́трий Алексе́евич Глухо́вский, born on June 12, 1979) is a professional Russian author[1] and journalist. Glukhovsky started in 2002 by publishing his first novel, Metro 2033, on his own website to be viewed for free. The novel has later become an interactive experiment, drawing in many readers, and has since been made into a video game for the Xbox 360 console and PC. Glukhovsky is known in Russia for his novels Metro 2033 and "It's Getting Darker". He is also an author of a series of satirical "Stories of Motherland" criticizing today's Russia.
As a journalist, Dmitry Glukhovsky has worked for EuroNews TV in France, Deutsche Welle, and RT. In 2008-2009 he worked as a radio host of a Mayak Radio Station. He writes columns for Harper’s Bazaar, l’Officiel and Playboy.
He has lived in Israel, Germany and France and speaks English, French, Hebrew can understand German and some phrases in Spanish as well as his native Russian.

Jon Krakauer

Jon Krakauer (born April 12, 1954) is an American writer and mountaineer, primarily known for his writing about the outdoors and mountain-climbing. He is the author of best-selling non-fiction books—Into the Wild, Into Thin Air, Under the Banner of Heaven, and Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman—as well as numerous magazine articles.