Ibrahim Abdel Megid is one of the premier novelists of his generation in Egypt. He was born and raised in the literary city of Alexandria, where the majority of his works are set. His more recent output includes award-winning novels such as The Other Place, winner of the inaugural Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature, and No One Sleeps in Alexandria, winner of the Cairo International Book Fair special award for best novel of the year.

Hosam M. Aboul-Ela is a critic and translator who grew up in Texas and currently teaches at the University of Houston. He has published essays on topics as diverse as Naguib Mahfouz, the Egyptian media, Latin American intellectuals, and William Faulkner. His previous translation is the novel Voices by Soleiman Fayyad.