Michael Palin has written and starred in numerous TV programmes and films, from Monty Python and Ripping Yarns to The Missionary and American Friends.

He has also made several much-acclaimed travel documentaries, his journeys taking him to the North and South Poles, the Sahara Desert, the Himalayas, Eastern Europe and Brazil. His books include accounts of his journeys, novels (Hemingway’s Chair and The Truth) and several volumes of diaries.

From 2009 to 2012 he was president of the Royal Geographical Society, and in 2013 he was made a BAFTA fellow. He lives in London.

Claire Messud is a recipient of a Guggenheim and Radcliffe Fellowships and the Strauss Living Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with her husband and children.

Kamila Shamsie is the author of six novels: In the City by the Sea; Kartography (both shortlisted for the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize); Salt and Saffron; Broken Verses; Burnt Shadows (shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction) and, most recently, A God in Every Stone, which was shortlisted for the Baileys Prize, the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction and the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature.

Three of her novels have received awards from Pakistan's Academy of Letters. Kamila Shamsie is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and in 2013 was named a Granta Best of Young British Novelist. She grew up in Karachi and now lives in London.

Teju Cole is a novelist, photographer and critic. He was born in the United States in 1975, and lived in Nigeria until he went to university.

His first novel, Open City, featured on numerous book of the year lists and was the winner of prizes such as the PEN/Hemingway Award and the Internationaler Literaturpreis and was shortlisted for the Ondaatje Prize of the Royal Society of Literature. Cole is the Gore Vidal Professor of the Practice of Creative Writing at Harvard.

Jamal Mahjoub was born in London and spent his formative years in Khartoum, Sudan. Since then he has settled in a number of cities, including London, Aarhus, Barcelona and, more recently, Amsterdam.

The author of seven novels, his work, fiction and non-fiction, has been critically acclaimed and widely translated. He has published six crime novels featuring private detective Makana, using the pen name Parker Bilal.

Alice Walker won the Pulitzer prize and the American Book Award for The Color Purple. She is the author of many bestselling novels, essays and collections of poetry including Meridian, By the Light of my Father's Smile and The Third Life of Grange Copeland.

Born in 1930, Nigerian novelist and poet Chinua Achebe is probably black Africa's most widely read novelist. His first work, Things Fall Apart, is regarded as a classic of world literature and has been translated into 40 languages.

Mohammed Hanif was born in Okara, Pakistan. He graduated from the Pakistan Air Force Academy as Pilot Officer but subsequently left to pursue a career in journalism.

His first novel, A Case of Exploding Mangoes, was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize, shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award and won the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best First Novel.

His second novel, Our Lady of Alice Bhatti, was shortlisted for the 2012 Wellcome Prize. He has written the libretto for a new opera Bhutto. He writes regularly for the New York Times, BBC Urdu, and BBC Punjabi. He currently splits his time between Berlin and Karachi.

Henning Mankell (1948-2015) became a worldwide phenomenon with his crime writing, gripping thrillers and atmospheric novels set in Africa.

His prizewinning and critically acclaimed Inspector Wallander Mysteries continue to dominate bestseller lists all over the globe and his books have been translated into forty-five languages and made into numerous international film and television adaptations: most recently the BAFTA-award-winning BBC television series Wallander, starring Kenneth Branagh.

Driven by a desire to change the world and to fight against racism and nationalism, Mankell devoted much of his time to working with charities in Africa, including SOS Children’s Villages and PLAN International, where he was also director of the Teatro Avenida in Maputo.

In 2008, the University of St Andrews conferred Henning Mankell with an honorary degree of Doctor of Letters in recognition of his major contribution to literature and to the practical exercise of conscience.

Geoff Dyer is the author of ten non-fiction books and four novels. He has won the Somerset Maugham Prize, the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction, a Lannan Literary Award, the International Center of Photography's 2006 Infinity Award for writing on photography and the American Academy of Arts and Letters' E.M. Forster Award.

In 2012 he won a National Book Critics Circle Award and in 2015 he received a Windham Campbell Prize for non-fiction. His books have been translated into twenty-four languages. He currently lives in Los Angeles where he is Writer in Residence at the University of Southern California.

China Mieville is the author of numerous books, including The City & The City, Embassytown, Railsea, and Perdido Street Station.

His works have won the World Fantasy Award, the Hugo Award, and the Arthur C. Clarke Award (three times). He lives and works in London.

Pankaj Mishra is the author of Butter Chicken in Ludiana, The Romantics, An End to Suffering and Temptations of the West. He writes principally for the Guardian, The New York Times, London Review of Books and New York Review of Books. He lives in London, Shimla and New York.

Linda Spalding is the author of four critically acclaimed novels The Purchase,(awarded Canada 's Governor General 's Literary Award) Daughters of Captain Cook, The Paper Wife, and Mere.

She runs the Canadian literary magazine, Brick, with her husband Michael Ondaatje. She lives in Toronto.

Susan Abulhawa is a human rights activist, a biologist, and political commentator. She is the founder of Playgrounds for Palestine, a children's organisation dedicated to upholding The Right to Play for Palestinian children.

Her debut novel, Mornings in Jenin, was an international bestseller, translated into 26 languages. She lives in Pennsylvania with her daughter and their beloved dogs.

J. M. Coetzee was the first author to win the Booker Prize twice and was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2003.

His work includes Waiting for the Barbarians, Life & Times of Michael K, The Master of Petersburg, Disgrace and Diary of a Bad Year. His most recent writing is a trilogy of novels- The Childhood of Jesus, The Schooldays of Jesus and The Death of Jesus. He lives in Adelaide.

William Sutcliffe was born in London in 1971. He is the author of the international bestseller Are You Experienced?; The Love Hexagon; New Boy; Bad Influence, Whatever Makes You Happy and, most recently, The Wall. His work has been translated into more than twenty languages. He lives in Edinburgh.

Adam Foulds's most recent books are In the Wolf’s Mouth, The Quickening Maze, which was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and won the Encore Award and the European Union Prize for Literature, and The Broken Word, which won the Costa Poetry Award and the Somerset Maugham Award. He has recently been awarded the E.M. Forster Award by the American Academy of Arts and Letters and named as one of Granta’s ‘Best of Young British Novelists’.

Ed Pavlic is the author of eight collections of poems, including Visiting Hours at the Coloring Line and Let's Let That Are Not Yet: Inferno, both of which were winners of the National Poetry Series. He has published essays, poems, fiction, and dramatic pieces with dozens of outlets, including the New York Times, Boston Review, Harvard Review, Ploughshares, and Callaloo. His critical work includes 'Who Can Afford to Improvise?': James Baldwin and Black Music, the Lyric and the Listeners and Crossroads Modernism: Descent and Emergence in African American Literary Culture. A recipient of the Author of the Year Award from the Georgia Writers Association and a fellowship from the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute at Harvard University, Pavlic is Distinguished Professor of English and African American Studies at the University of Georgia.

Deborah Moggach is the author of many successful novels including Tulip Fever and The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, which was made into a top-grossing film starring Judi Dench, Bill Nighy and Maggie Smith.

Her screenplays include the film of Pride and Prejudice, which was nominated for a BAFTA. She lives in Wales.

Rachel Holmes is the author of Eleanor Marx: A Life, The Secret Life of Dr James Barry and The Hottentot Venus: The Life and Death of Saartjie Baartman.

She is co-editor of Fifty Shades of Feminism and I Call Myself A Feminist. She lives in London.

Raja Shehadeh is Palestine's leading writer. He is also a lawyer and the founder of the pioneering Palestinian human rights organisation Al-Haq.

Shehadeh is the author of several acclaimed books including Strangers in the House, Occupation Diaries and Language of War, Language of Peace and winner of the 2008 Orwell Prize for Palestinian Walks (all Profile). He lives in Ramallah in Palestine.