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Alison Pick’s novel about Czechoslovakian Jews during the Nazi occupation was informed by her family history: her father came from a family of Czech Jews but was raised a Christian

Jhumpa Lahiri’s debut collection of stories, Interpreter of Maladies, was a multi-award-winning bestseller, translated into more than 30 languages

In 1987, aged 22, Alison MacLeod moved from her native Canada to England, supposedly for one year to read for an MA. The moved has proved rather more permanent: she is still here

Dublin-born Niall Williams was longlisted for the Booker Prize 2014. He cut his teeth as a writer with four non-fiction books written with his American wife Christine Breen about life in their cottage in County Clare, Ireland

Richard House is a visual artist as well as writer and when The Kills was published digitally, it was accompanied by related short films and audio projects of his own devising

Marilynne Robinson is an American novelist and essayist who has received numerous awards across her writing career

David Nicholls’s began his career as an actor, under the stage name David Holdaway, before becoming a novelist and television and film scriptwriter, adapting his own works and classic novels

Ottessa Moshfegh was born in Boston Massachusetts and is an American author and novelist

English is Laila Lalami’s fourth language. Born in Morocco, she first spoke Moroccan Arabic, before learning Standard Arabic and French – the language of her first writings – and only then English

Both The Chimes and her book of poems, The Violinist in Spring, hint at Anna Smaill’s first love; for years she studied the violin with the intention of becoming a professional performer