FRANCIS SPUFFORD (CHAIR)
Francis Spufford was born in 1964, the child of two historians, and worked in publishing before becoming a full-time writer in 1990. For the first half of his career, he was the author of non-fiction, and because he liked to cross subject areas and hybridise different types of non-fiction, his early books won or were shortlisted for prizes in science writing, theological writing, political writing and ‘mountain writing’. After I May Be Some Time (1995), The Child That Books Built (2002), Backroom Boys (2003) and Unapologetic (2012), he began a shift towards the novel. Red Plenty (2010) was a halfway house, in terms of genre, containing both scenes and dialogue and a backbone of historical explanation. But Golden Hill (2016) was thoroughly and completely a novel, as have been each of his books since, Light Perpetual (2021) and Cahokia Jazz (2023). He was the winner of the Costa Book Award for Debut Fiction, the Desmond Elliott Prize, the Ondaatje Prize and the Encore Prize, and was longlisted for the Booker Prize in 2021. He is both a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. Since 2007 he has taught writing at Goldsmiths College, University of London, in 2018 becoming Professor of Creative Writing. He lives near Cambridge.
(Photo: Antonio Olmos)
KRZYSZTOF ZANUSSI
Krzysztof Pius Zanussi is a Polish film and theatre director, producer and screenwriter. He is a professor of European film at the European Graduate School in Saas-Fee. He is also a professor at the Krzysztof Kieślowski Film School of the University of Silesia in Katowice. He was born in 1939 in Warsaw as an only child of Jerzy Zanussi and Wanda (née Niewiadomska). He studied physics at Warsaw University (Uniwersytet Warszawski) and philosophy at the Jagiellonian University (Uniwersytet Jagielloński) in Kraków. He is a graduate of the prestigious National Film School in Łódź.
Krzysztof has directed over 40 films, many award-winning, in a 50-year career, including Camouflage, Spiral, The Constant Factor, From a Far Country, The Temptation, A Year of the Quiet Sun, At Full Gallop, Life As A Sexually Transmitted Disease, Foreign Body, Eter and most recently The Perfect Number.
He is the recipient of the Golden Lion at the 1984 Venice Film Festival for A Year of the Quiet Sun, the Jury Prize at the 1980 Cannes Film Festival for The Constant Factor, as well as two Grands Prix at the 1977 and 2000 Gdynia Film Festival for Camouflage and Life as a Fatal Sexually Transmitted Disease, respectively. He was a director of the Polish Film Studio TOR and has received several prizes and awards, including the David di Donatello Prize of the Accademia del Cinema Italiano, the Cavalier’s Cross of the Polonia Restituta Order, and the Cavalier de L’Ordre des Sciences et Lettres.
Krzysztof was Tadeusz’s great friend and collaborator for over 45 years and Tadeusz appeared in around 20 of his film and TV projects.
(Photo: Adrian Tync)
CAROLE WELCH
Carole Welch is an editorial consultant who ran Sceptre, Hodder & Stoughton’s literary imprint, for over 30 years. She began her publishing career in publicity before joining Sceptre as Senior Editor. She rose to become its Publishing Director and led its development in the 1990s from a paperback list into a publisher of original fiction and non-fiction, with many prize-winners and bestsellers to its name. She published an array of distinguished writers from around the world such as David Mitchell, Andrew Miller, Siri Hustvedt, Thomas Keneally, Jill Dawson, Sjόn, Andreï Makine, Fiona McFarlane, Marguerite Duras, Bahaa Taher, Melvyn Bragg, Dinaw Mengestu, Michael Chabon, Jenn Ashworth, Miroslav Penkov and Naoki Higashida. Between them her authors have won numerous major prizes including the Booker Prize, Costa Book of the Year, James Tait Black Memorial, Prix Goncourt, Miles Franklin, Pulitzer, John Llewellyn Rhys, International Prize for Arabic Fiction, IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, BBC International Short Story Award and Nordic Prize.
Carole has won, and been shortlisted twice, for Imprint and Editor of the Year at the British Book Awards. She was named one of the 50 most influential people in publishing in the Observer, was shortlisted for the inaugural Kym Scott Walwyn Award, which celebrates exceptional women in publishing, and was a member of the Women’s Prize for Fiction Board for 13 years.