Lisa is the prize-winning Anglo-Guyanese London-born author of twenty books, including novels, short stories and memoirs. In 1982 she was chosen as a Best of British Young Novelist for her first novel Keepers of the House, and won the Somerset Maugham Award. After 20 years living on the north coast of Mozambique, where she founded the Teran Foundation, she is now based in London.

Amaurea is collaborating with Lisa in the publication of her new writing (Better Broken Than New and The Hobby), as well as gradually bringing all her extensive writing back into print.

Photo © Mees van Deth

Anna Lidia was born in the former USSR, to a Russian/Ukrainian mother and Cuban father. She settled definitively in Havana, Cuba, in 1989. Originally a visual artist, in 1997 she won the Premio David for her first short-story collection, Bad Painting. She has become a celebrated figure in the Cuban literary scene, with eight short-story collections, three books of poetry and two novels. Through both her words and her painting, her work is noteworthy for its very personal reflection of daily life, grindingly yet magically real.

Amaurea is collaborating with Anna Lidia in bringing her work to English audiences, with translations of her novel Anima Fatua, poetry A Minature Garden, and short stories, Sideways Glance. We will also be bringing out new Spanish editions of her work, and are planning on an anthology of her short stories.

Photo © Gonzalo Vidal

Richard spent part of his childhood in Ghana. Much of his professional life was spent travelling the world as a senior director for the British Council. This brought him postings in Bangkok, New Delhi, Sao Paolo, Lagos, Nigeria, Athens, Brussels and Hong Kong. Several of his stories and plays have been broadcast by the BBC, and in 1989 he published his first novel, A Curious Child. He was awarded an OBE in 1998 for Indo-British cultural relations.

As well as working with Richard to bring out his memoir, Highlife, & my other lives, Amaurea will be republishing A Curious Child.

Photo © Ian Cook

Jean first went to Cuba in 1968 to conduct research. She married there, had two children, and lived and worked in Havana until 1987. On her return to London, she was drawn into Caribbean and Latin American Studies. She has published widely on Cuba, with a special interest in tobacco, class, race, gender, nation and migration. Her foundational work on Cuban tobacco, and especially the Havana cigar, led her to trace cultivation, trade, manufacture, labour and consumption on a regional and global scale, linking commodity and migration histories, drawing on sociological, anthropological and agronomic approaches, as well as archival and oral history.

Amaurea has been collaborating with Jean in bringing her now classic Tobacco on the Periphery back into print, and we have also brought out a compilation of her various published writings on Cuban tobacco (Tobacco Counterpoints). Jean was also co-produced with Amaurea’s Jon the documentary Cuba: Living Between Hurricanes.

Rodney grew up County Wicklow, Ireland, until his mother moved to London with him and his siblings. From early on he travelled around a lot. Backwards and forwards to Ireland: Galway, and later Cork. A Buddhist group in Leicester. Glasgow. Rodney started writing in the early 1990s when in Cork. Being dyslexic, he began messing around with wordplay poems. He started writing plays in 2004, when he was involved with the Cork Arts Theatre. It was then that he wrote ‘Over The Top’ and ‘Birds Still Fly’. He has continued writing since, with performances of his plays in Ireland, London, Scotland and Australia. He is currently based in London.

For many years Rodney has been collaborating with Amaurea’s Jon and Ash, in theatre, film and writing projects. Having now brought out a first volume of his plays (Two Plays of War and Peace: Birds Still Fly and Over The Top), we will be publishing more of his works. And no doubt keep finding new ways we can work creatively together.

Image © Rodney Quinn

Born in Chile, Gonzalo became involved in the clandestine struggle against Pinochet. Going into exile in 1975, he went to Romania, but in 1980 found what became his true home in Cuba. Since then, he has become a familiar face in Havana’s cultural life, establishing himself as a professional photographer in 1986. Over the years, he has had thirty-six personal exhibitions throughout Cuba, Latin America and Europe, alongside participation in over a hundred collective shows. He has gained a deserved reputation for his extensive portrayal of visual artists, jazz musicians and dance performers. Alongside this, he has developed a distinctive eye for the magical and abstract in our everyday surroundings – in the streets, in the sky, and in the sea he loves to live beside.

Gonzalo has been collaborating with Amaurea’s Jon for many years. Together we have promoted art, produced films, written screenplays, and generally found ways to make life a creative act. His photographs illustrate Anna Lidia Vega Serova’s Un Jardin en Miniatura; and he coordinated the Jazz Habana: Siete Miradas photographic project, in which he is one of the featured jazz photographers. As our Man in Havana, Gonzalo is helping Amaurea develop the Cuban side of our projects.

Photo © Gonzalo Vidal

Born in Italy, Florence is the daughter of artist Robbie Duff-Scott and author Lisa St Aubin de Terán. Following a mental health crisis, Florence ‘found her voice’ while undergoing psychiatric treatment as an ‘informal patient’ on a mental health ward in the UK. It was on the ward that she began writing poetry as a means of coping and healing. Florence now lives in Devon with her family.

Amaurea has collaborated with Florence in publishing her first book of poetry, Eating Yellow.

Photo © Florence Duff-Scott

Carmel is the founder of the School of WorkLife. She was born and grew up in Ireland, and now lives in Shoreditch, London. Her work and subsequently her first book, Your WorkLife Your Way, and its companion workbook, focus on helping people live their best WorkLives by managing their learning, development and growth, through effective self-feedback, insightful questions and the ability to shape and tell their unique story.

Carmel and Amaurea’s Jon have collaborated on theatrical productions, on stage and in the workplace. Amaurea have published her WorkLife Book Club.

Photo © Carmel O’Reilly

Robin is a freelance translator from Liverpool, UK, based in Madrid. After graduating in modern languages from the University of Sheffield, he worked in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, before returning to the UK to complete his master's in translation studies at the University of Glasgow. He wrote his dissertation on postcolonial theory and the translation of Central Asian Russophone literature. He works primarily from Spanish, Russian and Asturian into English.

Robin has been collaborating with Amaurea in translating Anna Lidia Vega Serova’s Anima Fatua- which won an English PEN Translates award. We look forward to working with Robin in many more translation projects.