Benjamín Labatut was born in Rotterdam in 1980 and grew up in The Hague, Buenos Aires, and Lima. He published two award-winning works of fiction prior to When We Cease to Understand the World, which is his first book to be translated into English. His new book The Maniac, which was written in English, is coming from Penguin Random House in October 2023. Labatut lives with his family in Santiago, Chile.

Adrian Nathan West is a writer and literary translator living in Spain. His criticism has appeared in the London Review of Books, the Times Literary Supplement, and many other publications. He has translated books from German, Catalan, and Spanish, including Jean Améry's Charles Bovary, Country Doctor, which is published by NYRB Classics, and Pere Gimferrer for NYRB Poets. His debut novel, My Father's Diet, was published in early 2022.