Kazushige Abe is one of Japan's pre-eminent contemporary writers. A graduate of the Japanese Film School in Tokyo, he worked as an assistant director before turning his hand to writing. Since winning the Gunzo New Writers' Prize for his first novel, American Night, he has been awarded several of Japan's most prestigious literary prizes, including the Sei Ito Award, the Mainichi Culture Award, the Akutagawa Prize and the Tanizaki Prize.

Michael Emmerich teaches Japanese Literature at UCLA. He is the highly acclaimed translator of twenty books, including Nobel laureate Yasunari Kawabata's First Snow on Fuji and Dandelions and Banana Yoshimoto's Asleep, Goodbye Tsugumi and Hardboiled & Hard Luck. His scholarly works include The Tale of Genji: Translation, Canonization, and World Literature.