JEAN-MARIE BLAS DE ROBLÈS is a former lecturer in French literature and philosophy at universities in Brazil, China, Italy, and finally, for the Alliance Française in Taiwan. His first literary publication was a volume of short stories in 1982, followed by two novels; soon after he turned to writing full-time. An avid traveler, Blas de Roblès also edits a series of books on archaeology and is a member of the French Archaeological Mission in Libya. In 2008 he was awarded the prestigious Prix Médicis for his novel Where Tigers Are at Home.

MIKE MITCHELL has translated more than seventy books, including works by Goethe, Gustav Meyrink, Adolf Loos, and Oskar Kokoschka. Many of his translations have been short-listed for awards, including three short listings for the Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize. Most recently Mitchell has been short-listed for the Helen and Kurt Wolff Translator’s Prize for Thomas Bernhard’s Over All the Mountain Tops. In 1998 he was awarded the Schlegel-Tieck Prize for Herbert Rosendorfer’s Letters Back to Ancient China.