Authors Bernhard Schlink of Germany and Jostein Gaarder of Norway who will take part in the Dublin Writers' Festival this month

Fumio Nanjo, a leading Japanese curator and former judge of the Turner Prize, who will be attending ╔igse Carlow this month

Peter Plagens, chief visual-arts critic of Newsweek magazine, who will write in our Weekend supplement in two weeks' time on the achievement and possible future directions of the Irish Museum of Modern Art

Godfrey Cheshire, film editor and senior film critic of the New York Press, who will attend the Galway Film Fleadh in July

Meredith Monk, composer, writer, librettist, choreographer and film maker, who will collaborate with Irish Modern Dance Theatre

Peter Sellers, artistic director of Adelaide Festival of the Arts Composers Zhou Long and Peters Vasks, who will visit the West Cork Music Festival and discuss their work with Michael Dervan of The Irish Times

Daniel Liebeskind, the architect who designed Berlin's Jewish Museum and the extension to the Victoria & Albert Museum in London

Saskia Sassen, US sociologist and theorist, author of a series of books on the global city, who will take part in a conference on the theme of speed at the Irish Writers' Centre in November