Marie-Aude Murail studied literature at the Sorbonne. In her native France, she is a household name and has written many prize-winning novels for children and young adults.

Adriana Hunter spent four years at a French school as a child and took a First in French and Drama at the University of London. She has translated over 60 books, including for Bloomsbury Message in a Bottle and When I Was a Soldier, by Valerie Zenatti. She won the prestigious Scott-Moncrieff Prize 2011 for her translation of Beside the Sea, by Veronique Olmi, and the 2013 French-American Foundation and Florence Gould Foundation Translation Prize for Electrico W, by Herve Le Tellier, and has twice been shortlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize. She lives in Norfolk, England.