Ezzedine C. Fishere is an Egyptian–American novelist, academic, and a former diplomat. He has published ten novels in Arabic, three of which have been translated into English: Embrace on Brooklyn Bridge, which was nominated for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction (often referred to as “the Arabic Booker”), The Egyptian Assassin, which was adapted by Pan-Arab TV into a limited television series entitled, "Abou Omar El-Masry," and Nightfall in Cairo. He currently teaches Middle East politics at Dartmouth College and resides in Hanover, New Hampshire.

Jonathan Smolin is a writer, translator, and academic. He is a professor of Middle Eastern Studies at Dartmouth College and Director of the Dartmouth Initiative for Middle East Exchange (DIMEX). He is the author of The Politics of Melodrama and his translations from the Arabic include Whitefly by Abdelilah Hamdouchi, A Rare Blue Bird Flies with Me by Youssef Fadel, and I Do Not Sleep and A Nose and Three Eyes by Ihsan Abdel Kouddous. He lives in Hanover, New Hampshire.