Carmen Boullosa is one of Mexico's leading novelists, poets, and playwrights. She has published over a dozen novels, two of which were designated the Best Novel Published in Mexico by the prestigious magazine Reforma. Her second novel, Antes won the renowned Xavier Villarutia Prize for Best Mexican Novel. Her novel La otra mano de Lepanto was also selected as one of the Top 100 Novels Published in Spanish in the past 25 years. Boullosa has received numerous prizes and honors, including a Guggenheim fellowship. Also a poet and playwright, she is a Distinguished Lecturer at City College of New York, and her books have been translated into Italian, Dutch, German, French, Portuguese, Chinese, and Russian.

Samantha Schnee is the founding editor and chairman of the board of Words Without Borders. She has also been a senior editor with Zoetrope, and her translations have appeared in The Guardian, Granta, and The New York Times.