Elias Khoury was born in Lebanon in 1948. Editor in Chief of the cultural pages of the daily newspaper Al-Nahar and professor of Arabic literature at New York University, he is the author of eleven novels. In 2000 he was awarded the Prize of Palestine for Gate of the Sun. Elias Khoury is regarded as one of the best Arabic writers of his generation.
Humphrey Davies is an award-winning translator of Arabic literature from the Ottoman period to the present. Writers he has translated include Yusuf al-Shirbini, Elias Khoury, Alaa Al Aswany, Bahaa Taher, Muhammad Mustagab, Gamal al-Ghitani, Hamdy el-Gazzar, Khaled Al-Berry, and Ahmed Alaidy. He lives in Cairo.