Shirley Hazzard (1931-2016) was born in Australia but traveled the world during her early years, a result of her parents' diplomatic postings. In 1947, at the age of sixteen, she was hired by British intelligence to monitor the civil war in China. In 1963, she married the writer Francis Steegmuller, who died in 1994. Hazzard wrote several novels, two of which were National Book Award finalists: The Bay of Noon (1971) and The Transit of Venus (1981). She is also the author of two collections of short stories and several works of nonfiction, including the memoir Greene on Capri. Hazzard's final novel, The Great Fire, won the 2003 National Book Award for Fiction and the Miles Franklin Literary Award.

Lauren Groff (introduction) is the award-winning author of the novels The Monsters of Templeton, Arcadia, and Fates and Furies, and the two short story collections Florida and Delicate Edible Birds. She was named one of Granta's 2017 Best Young American Novelists. She lives in Gainesville, Florida, with her husband and sons.