CHARLES-FERDINAND RAMUZ (born Sept. 24, 1878, Cully, Switzerland—died May 23, 1947, Pully, near Lausanne) was a Swiss novelist whose realistic, poetic, and somewhat allegorical stories of man against nature made him one of the most iconic French-Swiss writers of the twentieth century. As a young man, he moved to Paris to pursue a life of writing, where he struck up a friendship with Igor Stravinsky, later writing the libretto for The Soldier’s Tale (1918). Returning to Switzerland in 1914, he spent the rest of his life living and writing in the canton of Vaud, where he was born. Ramuz pioneered a common Swiss literary identity, writing books about mountaineers, farmers, or villagers engaging in often tragic struggles against catastrophe. His legacy is remembered through the Ramuz Foundation, which grants the quintannual literary award, the Grand Prix C.F. Ramuz, for Swiss writers in the French language, and his portrait is featured on the 200 Swiss franc note.

OLIVIA BAES is a Franco-American multidisciplinary artist who grew up between France, Catalonia, and the United States. She holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Comparative Literature and a Master of the Arts in Cultural Translation from the American University of Paris. She has written multiple feature-length screenplays, including L’Homme au piano and Riches, which was selected as a project in development for the 70th Cannes Film Festival. Her translations include a co-translation of Me & Other Writing by Marguerite Duras (Dorothy, a Publishing Project, 2019).