Björk (1965) is a singer, songwriter, composer, record producer and actress. She has developed an eclectic musical style that draws on influences and genres including electronic, pop, jazz, experimental, trip hop, alternative, classical, and avant-garde music. Born and raised in Reykjavík, Björk began her music career at the age of 11.

Lord Byron (1788–1824) was an English poet and peer. One of the leading figures of the Romantic movement, Byron is regarded as one of the greatest English poets. He travelled extensively across Europe, especially in Italy, where he lived for seven years in the cities of Venice, Ravenna, and Pisa.

Giacomo Casanova (1725–1798) was an Italian adventurer and author from the Republic of Venice. His autobiography, Story of My Life, is regarded as one of the most authentic sources of the customs and norms of European social life during the 18th century. He became famous for his often complicated affairs with women.

Rosalía de Castro (1837–1885) was a Galician poet, strongly identified with her native Galicia and the celebration of the Galician language. Writing in Galician and Spanish, she became an important figure of the Galician Romantic movement. Her poetry is marked by a combination of nostalgia, longing and melancholy.

Joseph Conrad (1857–1924) was a Polish-British writer. He wrote stories and novels, many with a nautical setting, that depict trials of the human spirit in the midst of what he saw as an impassive, inscrutable universe.

Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating pathologies in the psyche through dialogue between a patient and a psychoanalyst.

James Joyce (1882–1941) was an Irish novelist, short story writer, poet, and literary critic. He is regarded as one of the most influential and important writers of the 20th century. Joyce was born in Dublin into a middle-class family.

Rosa Luxemburg (1871–1919) was a Polish and naturalised-German revolutionary socialist, Marxist philosopher and anti-war activist. Born and raised in an assimilated Jewish family in Poland, she became a German citizen in 1897.

Fernando Pessoa (1888–1935) was a Portuguese poet, writer, literary critic, translator, publisher, and philosopher, described as one of the most significant literary figures of the 20th century and one of the greatest poets in the Portuguese language.

José Saramago (1922–2010) was a Portuguese writer and recipient of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Literature for his parables sustained by imagination, compassion and irony. His works, some of which can be seen as allegories, commonly present subversive perspectives on historic events.

Georges Simenon (1903–1989) was a Belgian writer. A prolific author who published nearly 500 novels and numerous short works, Simenon is best known as the creator of the fictional detective Jules Maigret.

Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) was an English writer, considered one of the most important modernist 20th-century authors and a pioneer in the use of stream of consciousness as a narrative device. She was born into an affluent household in London.