Lucas Rijneveld grew up in a Reformed farming family in North Brabant before moving to Utrecht. He is the author of The Discomfort of Evening, which was the first Dutch book to win the International Booker Prize, as well as three poetry collections.

Michele Hutchison is a literary translator from Dutch and French into English. She is the winner of the Vondel Translation Prize for her translation of Stage Four by Sander Kollaard and the International Booker Prize together with Marieke Lucas Rijneveld for The Discomfort of Evening.