Andrea Lingenfelter is a poet, scholar of Chinese literature, and translator of contemporary Chinese-language fiction. Her translation of poetry by Zhai Yongming, The Changing Room, won a 2012 Northern California Book Award, and she was a 2008 recipient of the PEN Translation Fund grant and a 2014 National Endowment for the Arts Translation Grant awardee. She has also translated Hon Lai-chu's The Kite Family, Li Pik-wah's Farewell My Concubine, and Mian Mian's Candy. She teaches at the University of San Francisco.

Adonis was born Ali Ahmad Said Esber in the Syrian village Al-Qassabin in 1930. In 1956, fleeing political persecution, he moved to Beirut. In 1985, the ongoing Lebanese Civil War forced him to relocate to Paris, where he has resided ever since. One of the most influential contemporary Arab poets, he is the author of numerous collections, a translator of Ovid and Saint-John Perse, and has received many honors, including the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, the Goethe Prize, and the Pen/Nabokov Award.