Abdelwahab Meddeb was born in Tunis in 1946, and has lived in Paris since 1968. He is a poet, novelist, translator and essayist and is the editor of the journal Dédale. He was the curator of the 2005 exhibition West by East for the Centre of Contemporary Culture in Barcelona, which brought together ancient and contemporary artworks relating to Western society from the Arab world. He is the author of twenty books and is Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of Paris X-Nanterre. He will read from his novel, White Traverses of the Past, in French with English translations.