2024 Edition

RESIDENTS AT VIL·LA JOANA

PHASE 1. From April 15 to May 6

Alfie Lee (South Korea) is an illustrator and comic creator based in Bucheon who draws stories that reflect the lives of women and queer people in contemporary South Korea. She started with her first book, "Ur own XXX", published by her independent publishing house Bits in 2021. Her work not only seeks to offer a safe space for lesbian feminists who have begun to be explicitly antagonised in a rapidly changing South Korean society, but also to provide an opportunity to expand her indirect experiences to feminist allies.

Simona Hamer (Slovakia) is a freelance playwright and dramaturge based in Ljubljana and has been awarded the National Prize for the best play ("Postcards or Fear is Hollow on the Inside and Empty from the Outside", 2017), for the best book ("Flatmates", 2019) and nominated for the best play ("All Good", 2020) for her work as a playwright. Her plays, adaptations and dramaturgies have been performed in all the main theatres in Slovakia and on National Radio. Hamer's plays are translated into English, German, Serbian and Croatian. In her artistic career, Hamer is particularly interested in marginalised themes from a feminist perspective, social taboos, the problems of nationalism and discrimination, patriarchy and the exploitation of people and nature.

Ellinor Broman (Suecia) is a literary translator from Catalan and Spanish into Swedish, with a Master in Hispanic Literature from Gothenburg University. Among the Catalan works she has translated are "La mort i la primavera" by Mercè Rodoreda, "La meitat de l'ànima" by Carme Riera and "Canto jo i la muntanya balla" by Irene Solà. From Spanish, she has translated authors such as Elvira Lindo and the cartoonist Paco Roca, as well as a novel by the Chilean author Nona Fernández. At Vil·la Joana, she will work with the translation of a graphic novel by Sebas Martín. She is a member of the literary translators' section of The Swedish Writers’ Union.  In addition to her work as a translator, Ellinor Broman runs the publishing house Palabra förlag, which specializes in literature from Spain and Latin America.

PHASE 2. From May 6 to May 27

Esmie Jikiemi-Pearson is a writer of speculative fiction, inaugural winner of the Future Worlds Award in 2020 and author of the transgressive, long-running space opera, "The Principle of Moments" (Gollancz 2024). A recent graduate with a BA in English Literature and Classical Studies, Esmie is also co-founder of Impact of Omission, a campaign to make black history a compulsory part of the national curriculum, as reported in The Guardian, The Financial Times and The Times. When she's not writing about black kids dismantling space empires, you'll probably find her campaigning for a copy of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse to replace the Mona Lisa in the Louvre.

Simonas Bernotas (Lithuania) is a poet, translator, and publisher. He lives in Vilnius. He holds an MA in Intermediate Literature Studies from Vilnius University. Bernotas's poetry collection Reivas (Rave, published in 2019) earned the Best Debut prize from Lithuanian Ministry of Culture. Bernotas has translated works by such authors as Roberto Bolaño, Nicanor Parra, José Emilio Pacheco, Federico García Lorca, Jorge Luis Borges, and Julio Cortázar. His second poetry collection Pasakų parkas (Park of Folktales, published in 2023) is nominated »Book of the Year 2023« and was shortlisted as one of the twelve most creative books in Lithuania. 

PHASE 3. From May 27 to June 17

Gabriela Escobar (Uruguay) has published in Spain, Argentina, Chile and Uruguay the novel Si las cosas fuesen como son, winner of the Juan Carlos Onetti Award 2021 and finalist of the IESS Award of Edizioni SUR and of the long list of the Finestres Award. She has collaborated in literary magazines and is part of the Lesbic Poetry Anthology Devotees.

Mikel Ayllon (Bilbao, 1980). Writer, playwright, and translator. He graduated in Translation and Interpretation and holds a Master’s degree in Advanced Theater Studies. He has written several books, including the novel Ez tiro egin anbulantziei (“No disparar a las ambulancias”) (Elkar, 2015), which won the Igartza Prize for young writers, and the collection of short stories Zoriontsuak izatea aukeratu genuen (“Elegimos ser felices”) (Elkar, 2020), with which he won the prestigious Kutxa Donostia literature award. Additionally, he has contributed to the collective essay book Esperoan (“Esperando”) (Susa, 2022) on the influence of Beckett on Basque theater. He is the founder of the theater company Piszifaktoria Ideien Laborategia, for which he has written and directed several plays, including Hau ez da gerra bat (“Esto no es una guerra”), co-produced by the Basque Government and the Vitoria-Gasteiz Theater Network, and the street performance Asfaltoaren azpian, euria (“Bajo el asfalto, la lluvia”), which won the Karrikan creation grant from the Basque Country Street Festivals Association. He has also created and written the web series Daniel|a| for EiTB, the Basque public television.

Matthias Friedrich (Trier), studied creative writing in Hildesheim and Nordic literatures in Greifswald. Since 2018, he has been working as a literary translator into German. Among his authors are Svein Jarvoll, Leif Høghaug and Ida Marie Hede. At Vil·la Joana he will devote himself to Adrià Pujol Cruells' Picadura de Barcelona, his first translation from Catalan.

PHASE 4. From June 17 to July 9

Kateryna Yehorushkina (1984) is a Ukrainian writer. Member of PEN Ukraine, the National Union of Writers of Ukraine, and the Ukrainian Art Therapy Association. Kateryna was a TED speaker on the topic ("Fairy Tales and Future Values"). She holds a master's degree in "History, Literary Theory, and Comparative Studies" and graduated from postgraduate studies at the National University of "Kyiv-Mohyla Academy."Yehorushkina is the author of more than twenty published books and a creative writing teacher at "Litosvita." The rights to her books have been sold in ten countries (USA, UK, Denmark, Sweden, Poland, Lithuania, Georgia, Bulgaria, etc.). She writes for both adults and children, in fiction and non-fiction, prose, and poetry.

Maksym Bespalov (1983) is a Ukrainian writer and journalist, member of PEN Ukraine. After graduating in 2005, he worked for both Ukrainian and foreign press. He has been published in various Ukrainian literary magazines. He has been the co-editor of the literary magazine "STYKH". He also hosted the political talk show "Nazhyvo" on Dnipro television. As a writer, he was a finalist in the "Euroformat-2008" novel competition with his novel The satanists. His collection of short prose The dead giraffe won the "Smoloskyp" publishing house award in 2011.

Mark Livin, pen name, (1988) is a Ukrainian writer and journalist, member of PEN Ukraine. At the age of 19, he began writing essays and short books, which he distributed through social networks. He worked as an editor for several regional newspapers in Ivano-Frankivsk and for the Ukrainian weekly News and Sensations. He also works in the fields of advertising and marketing; from 2016-2017, he held the position of marketing director for Ukrainian Public Television. Since 2017, he has been the deputy editor-in-chief of the online publication The Village Ukraine.

PHASE 5. From July 9 to July 29

Clàudia Serra (Sweden) is a playwright, theatre critic and member of the editorial committee of the "Narrativa" collection of Editorial Afers. As a playwright, she has premiered, among others, Zoôn Politikón (2014) and Evast (2015), which won the Premis de Creació de la Universitat de València, Una carretera sense arbres (2023) and Un estiu (2023), Ciutat de Castelló Award.

Leonor Courtoisie (Montevideo) is a performing artist and writer. She researches critical thinking as a practice and creates collective situations in relation to notions of archive, family, memory, present and city. Her latest works as a director and playwright in Uruguay are: Muchachas de verano en días de marzo (2024) variations and sequences of the novel by Alicia Migdal for the Festival Temporada Alta at the Sala Verdi and Estudio para la mujer desnuda (2022) based on the novel by Harmonia Somers for the Comedia Nacional. Her play Duermen a la hora de la siesta (2019) won the National Literature Prize of Uruguay. She has received the Montserrat Roig writing grant from Barcelona Ciutat Literària (2023), among others. She published the play Corte de Obsidiana (2017), the poem Todas esas cosas siguen vivas (2020) and the novel Irse yendo (2021).

Juan Andrés García Román (Granada, 1979) is a writer, translator, and professor of literature and creative writing. He is the author of the poetry collections El fósforo astillado (DVD Ediciones, 2008), La adoración (DVD Ediciones, 2011), Fruta para el pajarillo de la superstición (Pre-Textos, 2016), Poesía Fantástica (2007-2019): Resumen primero (Pre-Textos, 2020), and Neorromanticismo (Ultramarinos: 2023). Some of his translations include Floreced mientras - Poesía del Romanticismo alemán (Galaxia Gutenberg, 2017), Un tenue éter indeterminado - Hongos de Yuggoth de H. P. Lovecraft (Pre-Textos, 2019), and Sonetos a Orfeo de R. M. Rilke (Pre-Textos, 2022). He has resided in creative centers such as Vermont Studio Center (Vermont, USA, 2014), Villa-Waldberta (Munich, Germany, 2015), MacDowell (New Hampshire, USA, 2019), and the Sanià house of the Finestres Literary Grant (Girona, 2023). His poetic work has been translated into English (Nick Rattner, Quantum Prose), Italian (Valerio Nardoni, Valigie Rosse), and German (Piero Salabè, Sujet Verlag, 2023), and has been included in anthologies of recent Spanish poetry such as Centros de Gravedad (Pre-Textos, 2018) and La cuarta persona del plural (Vaso Roto, 2016).

PHASE 6. From July 29 to August 26

Albertina Soepboer (Harlingen) is a bilingual poet and writer. She lives in Harlingen, a harbour town on the Wadden Sea in Frisia. She has published 15 poems, a novel and a collection of short stories. Experimentation with language and form is a feature of all his work. She also likes to work multilingually, which is why she writes in both Frisian and Dutch and translates literature from Spanish into Frisian.

Martha Luisa Hernández Cadenas (Cuba). Writer and performer. Graduate of the Arts University, ISA, speciality Theatreology. She has published the poems: Días de hormigas (Ed. Unión, 2018), David Award for poetry 2017, Los vegueros (Colección Sureditores, 2019), El Palacio de las Ursulinas (Ed. La Luz, 2021). Her novel La puta y el hurón, published by Sabina Urraca in Caballo de Troya, 2023, won the Novel Award Franz Kafka in 2020. Among her creations are the performances Nueve (2017), No soy unicornio (2019) and Escribir con la lengua (2022). Her work has been presented in Colombia, Argentina, Chile, Mexico, Spain, Germany, Canada and Switzerland. Her performance No soy unicornio wom the ZKB Acknowledgement Prize at the 2022 edition of the Zürcher Theater Spektakel. Founder of the independent publishing house ediciones sinsentido.

Marta Eloy Cichocka (Kraków). Polish poet and photographer, expert in Iberian studies and Francophile, literary researcher and translator (from Racine and Calderón de la Barca to Roberto Juarroz, Raúl Zurita and Olvido García Valdés, among others). Awarded the 1st prize of the National Poetry Contest Halina Poświatowska (2004), the 1st International SxS Antonio Machado Scholarship (2016) and the UNESCO City of Literature Award of Kraków (2021), she has published seven books of poetry and two books on the literary theory of the contemporary historical novel, in French and Spanish. She also coordinates 'República poética' (multilingual poetry readings) and 'Manufactura de poesía' (translation workshops). In Vil·la Joana she will be working on her 8th book of poems, searching for human balance in this world torn between climatic and economic chaos, pandemic and post-pandemic experiences, war, isolation and control.

PHASE 7. From August 26 to September 16 

Karim Dakroub (Lebanon) Writer and theater director, researcher and clinical psychologist. He obtained his first degree in theater directing from the Saint Petersburg State Academy of Dramatic Arts (1993). Afterwards, he continued his studies to obtain several diplomas, including in clinical psychology and psychosocial animation, in addition to a doctorate in art sciences. Founder of the Lebanese Puppet Theater and president of the Khayal Association for Education and Arts. He has written and directed more than 25 plays that are performed throughout the year in Lebanon and around the world. Director of the Mediterranean Puppet Festival in Lebanon. President of the Lebanese Center of ASSITEJ, and representative of UNIMA in Lebanon.

Marie Iljašenko (Kiev) is a Czech poet, writer and translator. She was born in Kiev, Ukraine, into a family of Ukrainian, Txec and Polish origin. Her family moved to the Czech Republic in 1992. Her poem Osip míří na jih (Osip goes south) was published in 2015 to great critical acclaim. It was nominated for the Magnesia Litera Award in the category Discovery of the Year. She has also been nominated for the Dresden Literature Award (2015) and the Václav Burian Award (2016). Her second book of poems, Sv. Outdoor, was published in 2019. Her poems have appeared, among others, in the anthologies Nejlepší české básně (Best Czech Poetry) in 2013, 2014 and 2017, in the Polish anthology Sąsiadki (2020) and in the Spanish anthology "Antología de poesía checa contemporánea" (Anthology of Contemporary Czech Poetry) (2021). She also writes short stories and essays. Her essay 'I’m Local Everywhere Around Here', which deals with the complexities of Central European identity, was awarded the Tom Stoppard Prize last year. She translates poetry from Polish and Ukrainian into Txec. She lives in Prague.

Eugenia Ladra (Uruguay) holds a Master's degree in degree in Literary Creation from Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona and is the author of the short story plaquettes La naturaleza de la muerte (2019) and El espacio podría sonar así (2020). She is part of the anthology Nuevas emergencias (Candaya, 2023). Her first novel will be published in 2024 by Criatura in Uruguay and Tránsito in Spain.

PHASE 8. From September 16 to October 7

Mehdi Moradpour is an author, playwright, court interpreter and translator for German, Persian and Spanish. He studied physics and industrial engineering in Iran, followed by Hispanic studies, sociology, North American and Arab studies in Leipzig and Havana. Between 2020 and 2023 he worked as a dramaturg at the Münchner Kammerspiele, collaborating with directors such as Pınar Karabulut, Nele Jahnke and Tea Tupajić, the choreographer Michiel Vandevelde and the documentary theatre group Porte Parole from Quebec. Since the 2023/2024 season he has been a dramaturg at the Schauspielhaus Bochum. In 2023 his book "ein körper ohne ort" (a body without a place) was published in the Suhrkamp Theater series. Moradpour's works have been translated into several languages.

Dominic Amerena (Australia - Greece) is an Australian writer, researcher, and educator. His fiction, essays, and criticism have been widely published, and he has won numerous awards, grants, and fellowships, most recently: the Hawthornden Fellowship, the Speculate Prize, a Work Grant from the Australia Council, and the Alan Marshall Short Story Award. He is represented by Grace Heifetz at Left Bank Literary and holds a PhD from RMIT University. He mostly resides in Athens, Greece.

Diego Recoba (Montevideo). Writer, editor and journalist. Co-founder of the popular publishing house La Propia Cartonera, until its closure in 2019. He was part of Salvadora Editora, which specialises in the performing arts. He published the novels Locas pasiones, Sobredosis, El oso and El Cielo visible; the poetry books Diario de un viaje al Chuy, Los violines de Lavoe, and Instituciones personales, and the chronicle book Hasta Borinquen. His stories have been published in anthologies in Germany, Spain, France and Argentina. From 2007 to the present, he has published journalistic notes, articles and reviews in written media in Uruguay, Argentina and Spain. He has given workshops on writing, Latin American literature and cinema in Uruguay, Argentina and Germany.

Mya Rose Craig (United States), also marketed as Birdgirl, is a British birdwatcher and author. She holds an honorary doctorate in science from the University of Bristol. In June 2022, she published the British edition of her autobiography, Birdgirl, which was published in the United States in March 2023.