Yuko Tsushima is considered one of the most important Japanese writers of her generation. Born in Tokyo in 1947, she was the daughter of the novelist Osamu Dazai, who took his own life when she was one year old. She wrote over a dozen novels, including Territory of Light and Woman Running in the Mountains, and won many awards, including the Izumi Kyoka Prize for Literature (1977), the Kawabata Prize (1983), and the Tanizaki Prize (1998). She died in 2016.

Lisa Hofmann-Kuroda is a literary translator. Born in Tokyo, raised in Texas, she is the co-translator of Ryunosuke Akutagawa's Kappa (New Directions, 2023). She lives in New York City.