Guests of FIILI 2026

Sinéad Mac Aodha is the Director of Literature Ireland, the national agency for the promotion of Irish literature abroad. She recently co-edited an anthology of Irish short stories in Spanish, Cuentos irlandeses contemporáneos. She served as the Irish expert on the European Union OMC Working Group on Translation and Multilingualism. Current projects include curating an exhibition of Irish authors' photographs at the European Parliament in Brussels and organising a conference celebrating Ireland's many European literary translators. She was Managing Director of the Centre Culturel Irlandais Paris from 2016–2017. Sinéad currently sits on a number of literature and translation prize juries.

Daria Bignardi was born in Ferrara and has lived in Milan for many years. She has published the novels Non vi lascerò orfani (Premio Rapallo, Premio Elsa Morante and Premio Città di Padova), Un karma pesante, L'acustica perfetta, L'amore che ti meriti, Santa degli impossibili, Storia della mia ansia and Oggi faccio azzurro with Mondadori. In 2022, Einaudi published her personal essay Libri che mi hanno rovinato la vita, followed in 2024 by Ogni prigione è un'isola, published by Mondadori and winner of the Premio Rapallo Saggistica. Her latest book, Nostra solitudine, was published in 2025.

Giuseppe Catozzella has published the poetry collection La scimmia scrive and the novels Espianti (2008); Alveare (2011; 2014)—which inspired numerous theatre productions and the movie L'assalto—; Non dirmi che hai paura (2014; winner of the 2014 Strega Giovani Prize; finalist at the 2014 Strega Prize and the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award; winner of the 2015 Carlo Levi Prize), a work translated worldwide that inspired a movie (Jury Prize at Robert De Niro's Tribeca Film Festival), a musical-theatrical production with music by Peter Gabriel, and an orchestral suite conducted by Maestro Riccardo Muti; Il grande futuro (2016; winner of the Giordano Bruno Prize); E tu splendi (2018; De Lorenzo Prize and Albatros Città di Palestrina Prize); and Italiana (2021; 2023 Prix Littératures Européennes and Alessandro Manzoni International Prize, finalist for the 2023 Prix Le Parisien), and soon to be adapted into a TV series. His last novel is Il fiore delle illusioni. Following the publication of Non dirmi che hai paura, Giuseppe Catozzella was appointed a UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador by the UN.

Michael Cronin is 1776 Professor of French in Trinity College Dublin and Senior Researcher in the Trinity Centre for Literary and Cultural Translation. Among his recently published titles are Eco-Translation: Translation and Ecology in the Age of the Anthropocene (Routledge, 2017), Irish and Ecology: An Ghaeilge agus an Éiceolaíocht (FÁS, 2019), Eco-Travel: Journeying in the Age of the Anthropocene (Cambridge University Press, 2022) and Ireland: Why It Matters to be an Island (Royal Irish Academy, 2026). He is a Member of the Royal Irish Academy, the Academia Europaea, an Officier in the Ordre des Palmes Académiques and a Fellow of Trinity College Dublin.

Martina Devlin is a newspaper columnist and the author of 12 novels, 2 works of non-fiction and 2 plays. She was born in Omagh and lives in Dublin. Martina holds a PhD in literary practice from Trinity College Dublin and has lectured there and in other universities on Irish literature. Prizes include the Royal Society of Literature's V.S. Pritchett Prize and a Hennessy Literary Award, and she has been shortlisted three times for the Irish Book Awards. Martina writes a weekly current affairs column for the Irish Independent for which she has been named National Newspapers of Ireland commentator of the year, among other journalism prizes. Martina's new novel Glorious Monsters will be launched at FIILI. © Steve Humphreys

Claudia Dellacasa is a Lecturer in Italian and Comparative Literature at the University of Glasgow. Her work originates in Italian Studies to encompass the broader fields of Environmental Humanities and Comparative Spiritualities. She is the author of Italo Calvino and Japan (Legenda 2024), which was awarded the XXIV International Flaiano Prize in Italian Studies "Luca Attanasio". Claudia is the Italian editor of the Modern Language Review and is part of the editorial board of Italian Studies. She writes regularly on Il Tascabile, Reading in Translation, and La Balena Bianca, and has been editor of the latter for several years.

Martin Doyle is Books Editor of The Irish Times and a former Editor of The Irish Post. He is the author of Dirty Linen: The Troubles in My Home Place (Merrion Press, 2023), which was shortlisted for Irish Nonfiction Book of the Year, and A Hosting: Interviews with Irish Writers 1991-2026 (Lilliput Press, 2026). He has contributed essays to The 32: An Anthology of Irish Working-Class Voices (Unbound, 2021) and The Routledge Handbook of the Northern Ireland Conflict and Peace (Routledge, 2023) and edited A History of The Irish Post (London, 2000). He has an MA in French and German from the University of St Andrews.

Catherine Dunne is the author of twelve novels, several essays and one work of non-fiction, An Unconsidered People, that documents the lived experience of half a million Irish immigrants to Britain in the 1950s. Catherine's novels have been shortlisted for a number of prizes, including Novel of the Year at the Irish Book Awards and the International Strega Prize. The Things We Know Now won the Giovanni Boccaccio International Prize for Fiction in 2013, and The Years That Followed was longlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award. Her latest novel, A Good Enough Mother, won the European Rapallo Prize for fiction in November 2023. Her work has been translated into several languages. She was the recipient of the 2018 Irish PEN Award for Outstanding Contribution to Irish Literature and is a member of Aosdána. © Simon Robinson

Wendy Erskine's novel The Benefactors (Sceptre) was Waterstones Irish book of the year. It was shortlisted for the Ondaatje Prize, the An Post Irish novel of the year and the fiction prize at the British Audio Awards. It was longlisted for the Gordon Burn Prize and the Women's Prize for Fiction. She has also written two prize-winning short story collections, Dance Move and Sweet Home, (Stinging Fly and Picador), and edited the art anthology well I just kind of like it. She works as a head of department in a secondary school.

Enrica Ferrara is the author of several books of academic non-fiction, dozens of essays and reviews, and one novel. She lectures in Italian at Trinity College Dublin. Her books include: Calvino e il teatro (2011); Il realismo teatrale nella narrativa del Novecento: Vittorini, Calvino, Pasolini (2014); Staged Narratives/Narrative Stages (2017); Posthumanism in Italian Literature and Film: Boundaries and Identity (2020); the special issue of Reading in Translation 'Reading Domenico Starnone' (with Stiliana Milkova, 2021) and the special issue of Quaderni d'italianistica on Critical Posthumanism in Italian Cinema and Media (with Russell Kilbourn, 2025). In 2024 her debut novel, Mia madre aveva una Cinquecento gialla was awarded the Rapallo Prize for fiction. © Michael Chester

Viviana Fiorentino is a writer and translator pursuing a PhD in poetry at the Seamus Heaney Centre (Queen's University Belfast). Selected for Poetry Ireland Introductions 2025, her award-winning work features in Poetry Ireland Review, The London Magazine, The Stinging Fly, Banshee, on RTÉ1, and in UCD's Irish Poetry Reading Archive. In Italy, she has published a novel and two poetry collections. Her translation work includes Italian editions of Freda Laughton, Anne Carson, Doireann Ní Ghríofa, Paula Meehan, and Nadia Terranova. She won the Irish Chair of Poetry Student Prize and was a finalist in the Gregory O'Donoghue Competition.

Ailbhe Ní Ghearbhuighis an award-winning poet from Ireland. She has published three collections of poetry in Irish to date and a bilingual book, The Coast Road, as well as translations of Andrée Chedid's poetry. Liadain, a retelling of a 9th Century text in poetry and prose, is forthcoming from Leabhar Breac. Gallery Press will publish another bilingual volume of poems, This Deep, in October 2026. See www.ailbhenighearbhuigh.com. Photo © Clare Keogh.

James Hadley is Ussher Associate Professor in Literary Translation at Trinity College Dublin. He is also the Director of the Trinity Centre for Literary and Cultural Translation, and Director of Trinity's award-winning master's degree in Literary Translation. James' current research focuses on how literary translators can make the most effective use of emerging technologies in their work.

Gustav Parker Hibbett is a Black poet, essayist, and MFA dropout. Their debut poetry collection, High Jump as Icarus Story (Banshee Press, 2024), won the John Pollard International Poetry Prize and was shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize, among other honours. They were the 2025 Commissioned Writer for Temple Bar Gallery + Studios, and they have recently completed a PhD in Literary Practice at Trinity College Dublin.

Sophie Hughes is a literary translator from Spanish and Italian. Her most recent translation is Vincenzo Latronico's Perfection, shortlisted for the 2025 International Booker Prize and listed among the best books of 2025 by the New York Times, The New Yorker, New York Public Library, and the Irish Times, among others. When she isn't translating, she teaches translation. Sophie lives in Trieste, and was a judge for the International Booker Prize 2026.

Caitriona Lally has published two novels, Eggshells (2015) and Wunderland (2021). She won the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature in 2018 and a Lannan Literary Fellowship for Fiction in 2019. She was the inaugural Rooney Writer Fellow at the Trinity Long Room Hub in 2022, and was one of the 2024 New Voices 20 Best New Irish Writers. Her first memoir, Home Economics, was recently published by New Island.

Paul Murray was born in Dublin in 1975. He is the author of four novels: An Evening of Long Goodbyes, Skippy Dies, The Mark and the Void and, mostly recently, The Bee Sting, which won the Nero Book of the Year Award, the An Post Irish Book of the Year, and, in Italy, the Strega Prize, as well as being shortlisted for the Booker Prize and named one of the New York Times' 10 best books of 2023. He lives in Dublin with his family.

Paul McVeigh's debut novel, The Good Son, won The Polari First Book Prize and The McCrea Literary Award. His short stories have been in anthologies, journals and newspapers, and read on BBC Radio, RTE Radio, as well as, Sky ARTS. His debut story collection, I Hear You, was published in March 2025. His writing has been translated into eight languages.

Antonella Lattanzi was born in Bari in 1979 and lives in Rome. She is a novelist and screenwriter. Her novels include Devozione(2010), Prima che tu mi tradisca (2013), Una storia nera (2017), Questo giorno che incombe (2021), Cose che non si raccontano(2023), which won the 2024 Wondy Prize, and Capire il cuore altrui (2024). Her books have been translated into several languages. She has written screenplays for films such as Fiore by Claudio Giovannesi, Il campione, and Una storia nera by Leonardo D'Agostini, based on her own novel. She is also a contributor to Corriere della Sera. Her most recent book is Chiara (2025, Mondello Prize 2026). Photo © Cristiano Gerbino

Tommaso Pincio is the pen name of Marco Colapietro, a prominent Italian novelist, translator, and visual artist born in Rome. After studying fine arts and working in the New York gallery scene during the early 1990s, he made his literary debut in 1999 with the novel M.. Recently, he was shortlisted for the Premio Campiello in 2023 with Diario di un'estate marziana. Beyond his original fiction, Pincio is a celebrated translator of contemporary English literature into Italian, an achievement that earned him the prestigious Premio Pavese in 2021. In 2025, his translation of Paul Murray's The Bee Sting was awarded the European Strega Prize.

Laura Pugno (Rome, 1970) is an Italian poet, novelist, essayist, playwright and translator. Her publications include several poetry collections and essays, one short story collection and six novels, among them Sirene ( Premio Libro del Mare, Premio Dedalus), recently translated into French by Inculte/Actes Sud, and La ragazza selvaggia (Premio Campiello Selezione Letterati). From 2015 to 2020 she was the Director of the Italian Cultural Institute and of the Italian Film Festival in Madrid. She is currently living in Rome, where she works as a cultural expert for the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Nadeesha Uyangoda is an Italian-speaking writer born in Sri Lanka, author of the essays L'unica persona nera nella stanza (2021) – winner of the Sila Prize in the 'Economy and Society' category and the Rapallo 'Anna Maria Ortese' Prize – and Corpi che contano (2024). With Einaudi, she has published Acqua sporca (2025), winner of the Campiello Debut Novel Prize and longlisted for the 2026 Strega Prize. She is the creator of the podcast Sulla Razza (Juventus/OnePodcast), has written for national and international media, and is in charge of the column 'Il libro' for Internazionale. She is the co-curator of 'Più Libri Più Liberi', a national book fair for small and medium publishers.