Cristóvão de Aguiar was born in 1940 and brought up on the island of São Miguel in the Azores, and died in Coimbra in 2021. He completed his secondary education in the Azores before leaving for Portugal to study for a degree in English and German at the University of Coimbra. His studies were interrupted when he was called up for military service, spent in the then territory of Portuguese Guinea (now Guinea-Bissau), an experience which formed the basis of his colonial war novel, O Braço Tatuado (The Tattooed Arm). He worked as a teacher in Coimbra, and is the author of numerous short stories, novels, and poetry.

David Brookshaw is an emeritus professor in Luso-Brazilian Studies at the University of Bristol, UK. He has translated a number of Lusophone authors, including novels by Mia Couto and Paulina Chiziane (Mozambique), and Pepetela (Angola), and has compiled anthologies of translated short stories by writers from Portugal and Macau, as well as contributing translations to magazines and other edited works. A number of his translations of the fiction of Mia Couto have been shortlisted for the Booker International Prize and the Dublin International Literary Award. His translation of Raul Brandão's As Ilhas Desconhecidas was published by Tagus Press in 2020.