State of Emergency

Soleiman Adel Gumar was born and raised in Algiers. He was heading for an army career when he quit his engineering studies to spend two years in Paris working in publishing. He returned to Algiers in 1991 amid signs of democratization, in order to work as a journalist, initially on 'L'Evenement' and then freelance. Besides reporting on corruption and human rights abuses, he also published numerous stories and won two national poetry prizes. A generous selection of his poems appeared in the Parisian journal 'Algerie Litterature / Action' in 2002. By the end of that year he had had to leave Algeria to seek safety for himself and his family in the UK. Tom Cheesman lectures in German at Swansea University. In 2003 he founded non-profit Hafan Books to publish writing by refugees and asylum seekers, alongside work by other writers in Wales (www.hafan.org). His poetry translations include Manfred Peter Hein's 'Between Winter and Winter' (University of Iceland, 2006). John Goodby lectures in English at Swansea University, specializing in Irish and Welsh writing in English. His poetry publications include 'A Birmingham Yank' (Arc, 1998) and an experimental translation of Heinrich Heine's 'Germany: A Winter's Tale' (Smokestack, 2005).Lisa Appignanesi is a novelist, writer, broadcaster and documentary producer. Her fictions include 'The Memory Man', which draws on her acclaimed family memoir 'Losing the Dead', and the best-selling psychological thrillers 'Sanctuary' and 'The Dead of Winter'. She co-authored 'Freud's Women' and co-edited 'The Rushdie File'. Formerly Deputy Director of London's Institute of Contemporary Arts, she has been Deputy President of English PEN since 2004 and ran the successful "Free Expression is No Offence" campaign against the Racial and Religious Hatred Bill.