Peter Handke was born in Griffen, Austria on December 6, 1942. He studied law at Graz University from 1961 to 1965. He is a playwright, novelist, poet, and essayist. His plays include Offending the Audience, Kaspar, and The Ride across Lake Constance. His novels include The Goalie's Anxiety at the Penalty Kick, The Left-Handed Woman, and A Sorrow beyond Dreams. He was awarded the Buchner Prize in 1973 and refused to accept the Kafka Prize in 1979.
Jeffrey Eugenides was born in Detroit, Michigan on March 8, 1960. He received a B.A. from Brown University and an M.A. in English and creative writing from Stanford University in 1986. His first novel, The Virgin Suicides, was published to in 1993 and was made into a feature film. His other works include Middlesex, which won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, and The Marriage Plot. He is a professor of creative writing at Princeton University.