Liu Heping was born in Hunan Province, southern China in 1953. He spent his childhood in the theatre and went on to become an acclaimed screenwriter, novelist and historian known for his deep insights into the events of Chinese history. His pioneering historical drama about the Ming dynasty, Da Ming Wang Chao 1566, was first published as a novel in 2006 and sold nearly a million copies. The following year, it was broadcast as a 46-episode TV series that garnered popular and critical acclaim in China. His Chinese Civil War TV drama, All Quiet in Peking, gained a cumulative 400 million online views in the month following its first broadcast in October 2014. The series made waves among China's intellectual circles and was picked up for international distribution by Netflix. Liu's realist approach to the historical and contemporary transformation of China has been hugely influential and well received in the Chinese-speaking world.

Wen Huang is a Chicago-based writer and translator. His memoir about growing up in Xi'an in the 1970s, The Little Red Guard, was a Washington Post Best of 2012 pick. He started translating Chinese non-fiction works in 2005, and since then his translations have been published by Pantheon, Harper Collins and Amazon. In 2007, he was the recipient of a PEN Translation Fund Award. His writings have appeared in The Paris Review, Harper's Magazine, The Asia Literary Review and Words Without Borders.