Chu T'ien-hsin is a prominent Taiwanese intellectual, and by the 1990s, she and her sister Chu T'ien-wen were recognized as leading writers of fiction. She is the author of a collection of short stories entitled Fangzhou shang de rizi( Days on board the ark), and a former literary editor. Currently she works as a freelance writer in Taiwan.Howard Goldblatt is research professor of East Asian languages and literatures at the University of Notre Dame and an internationally renowned translator. He has published English translations of more than thirty novels and short story collections and has authored many books on Chinese literature.