Bill Bryson was born in Des Moines, Iowa, on December 8, 1951. In 1973, Bryson went backpacking in England, where he eventually decided to settle. He wrote for the English newspapers The Times and The Independent, as well as supplementing his income by writing travel articles. Bryson moved back to the States in 1995. His first travel book, The Lost Continent, chronicles a trip in his mother's Chevy around small town America. Since then, he has written several more travelogues about the U. K. and the U. S., including bestsellers, A Walk in the Woods, I'm A Stranger Here Myself, and In a Sunburned Country. His other books include: Bill Bryson's Dictionary of Troublesome Words, Neither Here… nor There: Travels in Europe, Made in America, The Mother Tongue, Bill Bryson's African Diary, A Short History of Nearly Everything, At Home: A Short History of Private Life, Walk About, and Seeing Further: The Story of Science, Discovery, the Genius of the Royal Society.
Jason Wilson is emeritus professor of Latin American literature at the University College London. He is the author of Octavio Paz: A Study of His Poetics, An A-Z of Modern Latin American Literature in English Translation, and Buenos Aires: A Cultural and Literary Companion.