Jonathan Barker is Senior Literature Consultant at the British Council. He has worked as Librarian of the Arts Council Poetry Library and as Assistant Secretary of the Poetry Book Society. He has judged the National Poetry Competition with Edwin Morgan and George Szirtes and, in 2003, was a judge for the Whitbread Book Awards. He has edited bibliographies of contemporary poetry, two poetry anthologies, editions of the poems of W H Davies and Norman Cameron and a book of critical essays on Edward Thomas.He co-ordinated the British Council’s 2006 and 2008 Edinburgh literature showcases in conjunction with the Edinburgh International Book Festival. He has also been responsible for the Arts element of the British Council’s Darwin Now global product, which explores the impact of Darwin’s legacy in the 21st century linked to the bicentenary of the birth of Charles Darwin. Jonathan is retiring after this Cambridge Seminar and recently received an MBE for services to literature.

Damian Grant taught at the University of Manchester, and latterly at the University of Lille in France, where he now lives. His early work was in the eighteenth-century novel, with a book on Smollett and an edition for OUP; and he now continues to publish in this area, with essays on Swift and Sterne, and reviews on the Scriblerian. A book on Realism signalled a move to more general critical concerns, and he became more involved with twentieth-century fiction (and poetry), with publications on D H Lawrence, Christine Brooke-Rose, Ian McEwan, Christopher Hope, Seamus Heaney and Tony Harrison. His book on Salman Rushdie was published in the British Council Writers and Their Work series in 1999, and he is preparing a new edition. Damian Grant’s poems have appeared in various journals, and a selection of his Shaiku (Shakespeare’s sonnets rewritten as haiku) was published in PN Review. He spent a year at the University of Tunis in 1976-7, and has made shorter visits to many countries, often at the invitation of the British Council. He has been co-chairman of the Seminar for many years.

Susanna Nicklin, Director of Literature, joined the British Council from English PEN, the London branch of the international writers’ association, in November 2005. Before that, she worked as an international literary agent, selling translation rights to publishers worldwide. Susanna manages a team of specialist advisors and directs the British Council’s global literature programme, with special responsibility for China, India and Russia and major partnerships. She has co-chaired the British Council’s Oxford Conference and Cambridge Seminar as well as debates and events at international book fairs and festivals. She sits on the committees of the Rossica translation prize, the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize and the London Book Fair advisory Board. She has judged UK and international prizes, both literary and for literature entrepreneurs. - due to unforeseen circumstances Susanna Nicklin is unable to attend this Cambridge Seminar. We wish Susie and her family well in this difficult time.

Steven Gale is an arts and education manager based in London.  He has worked at theatres in England and Scotland, and taught at universities in Ireland and the United States.  He was assistant artistic director at the Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh for six years, and assistant director to the renowned Spanish theatre director Calixto Bieito on two acclaimed Edinburgh International Festival productions, Life is a Dream and Barbaric Comedies.  Steven has previously chaired events at literature festivals including Edinburgh, Cheltenham, Bath, Brighton and Sydney.