Emigration and its traumatic effects, text-and-sound landscapes and gender questions: In her texts, British author Jackie Kay asks questions about both gender-specific and social affiliation. (Jackie Kay caused attention in Germany with her novel Trumpet, which deals with a woman jazz musician and her life as a man.) George Lamming, the doyen of Caribbean literature, writes about Marie-Hélène Laforest and her very personal insights into Haitian-Caribbean and (US) American life: 'As a Haitian author who writes in English she succeeds in creating new literary forms with this old language'.

Marie-Héléne Laforest, author and essayist, currently teaches post-colonial literature at the University of Naples, Italy. In both her fiction and non-fiction works, she has concerned herself with aspects of the Caribbean and African Diaspora; her short stories have appeared in many US periodicals and anthologies. "Foreign Shores", her first collection of short stories, was published in 2003.

Ekpenyong Ani is a journalist and editor and a certified translator for English, Portuguese and Dutch. Since 2001, she has been executive director of the Orlanda Frauenverlag press in Berlin; she is also an executive member of ADEFRA e.V. (Black women in Germany). Her writings have appeared in "The African Courier", the "Das Coming Out Lesebuch" (Ed. Konopik/Montag 1999) and "AufBrüche. Kulturelle Produktionen von Migrantinnen, Schwarzen und jüdischen Frauen in Germany" (Ed. Gelbin/Konuk/Piesche 2000).