Mohamed Leftah was a writer and journalist born in Settat, Morocco, in 1946. He attended engineering school in Paris and then returned in 1972 to Morocco, where he became a literary critic for Le Matin du Sahara and Le Temps du Maroc. His career as a novelist began with the publication of the critically acclaimed Demoiselles de Numidie in 1992, followed by ten more novels over the next nineteen years. Captain Ni'mat's Last Battle is his English-language debut. He died of cancer in 2008.

Lara Vergnaud is a translator of prose, creative nonfiction, and scholarly works from the French. She is the recipient of two PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grants and a French Voices Grand Prize, and has been nominated for the National Translation Award. She lives in Washington, DC.