EVE ENSLER is the Tony Award-winning playwright, activist, and author of the theatrical Obie Award winning phenomenon
The Vagina Monologues, published in 48 languages and performed in over 140 countries. Ensler is founder of V-Day, the 20-year-old global activist movement to end violence against women and girls. Her new play
The Fruit Trilogy opens in 2018 with the Abingdon Theatre Company at the Lucille Lortel Theatre.
DANISH HUSAIN is an actor, poet, storyteller, and theater director. He has appeared in a number of films, including
Peepli Live (2010),
AnkhonDekhi (2013),
Newton (2017).
LARA VAPNYAR came to the U.S. from Russia in 1994. She is the author of the novels
Scent of Pine (Simon and Schuster),
Memoirs of a Muse (Pantheon), and
Still Here (Hogarth) and two collections of short stories. She is a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and the Goldberg Prize for Jewish Fiction. Her stories and essays have appeared in
The New Yorker,
The New York Times,
Vogue,
Harper's, and
The New Republic.
BURHAN SӦNMEZ is a novelist, editor, and the translator of William Blake into Turkish. In April 2018 he was the awarded the first European Bank Prize for Literature for his novel
Istanbul Istanbul (OR Books). A board member of PEN International, he also won the Disturbing the Peace Award from the Vaclav Havel Library Foundation in 2017.
NINOTCHKA ROSCA is a journalist, novelist, and human rights activist. Her two novels--
State of War and
Twice Blessed (which won the American Book Award in 1993)--are considered classics of modern Philippine literature.
VIJAY PRASHAD is the executive director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. He is the author or editor of several books, including
The Darker Nations: A Biography of the Short-Lived Third World and
The Poorer Nations: A Possible History of the Global South. His most recent book is
Red Star Over the Third World. He writes regularly for
Frontline,
The Hindu,
Alternet and
BirGun.
