Marco Bolognesi – Italian film director and visual artist

Irvine Welsh – Scottish writer and author of Trainspotting

Alberto Masotti – Former president of La Perla

Pupi Avati

Claude Lelouch

Nicolas Winding Refn

Romano Prodi

Marco Manetti

Malachi O’Doherty – Northern Irish journalist, author and broadcaster

Ben Okri – Nigerian poet and novelist, winner of the Booker Prize

Bruce Pascoe – Australian Indigenous writer

Michael Redhill – Canadian poet, playwright and novelist

Irving Finkel – British philologist and Assyriologist, curator at the British Museum

Sir Philip Pullman – English novelist and author of His Dark Materials

Louise Minchin – British journalist and news presenter

Maimouna Jallow – Kenyan writer, journalist and producer

Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi – Ugandan novelist and short story writer

Mara Menzies – Kenyan storyteller and performer

Aki Onda – Japanese-born artist, composer and curator