Naim Araidi was born in 1950, in the Druze village of Marrar in the Galilee.  He went to Hebrew school in Haifa, and continued to a PhD in Hebrew Literature. He teaches in Haifa and has published numerous  books of poetry and prose both Arabic and Hebrew.  He has been awarded the Prime Minister's Award; The Creativity Prize for Arabic Literature; and an honorary PhD from the World Academy for Arts and Culture. A book of poetry entitled Back to the Village is available in English.

Translator Karen Alkalay-Gut was born in London in the Blitz (March 29,1945), and was educated in the United States. She received her PhD in English literature at the University of Rochester. In 1972 She moved to Israel, and has been teaching poetry at Israeli universities since then. In 1977 she joined the faculty at Tel Aviv University where she teaches poetry. In addition to a biography of the poet Adelaide Crapsey, Alkalay-Gut has published numerous articles on modern American poetry, Victorian literature and fiction, as well as studies of Rock music and poetry. Her poetry publications include a number of books in English-most recently In My Skin (Sivan, 2000), The Love of Clothes and Nakedness (Sivan, 1999) High Maintenance (Neamh, 2001)and So Far So Good (Sivan, 2004). The Layered Look: Selected Poems, and Getting Better will appear in 2008.

As a reader of her poetry, Alkalay-Gut's experience has been varied. She has performed in places as diverse as the Library of Congress in Washington, the Nuyorican Poetry Cafe in New York, the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv and the Arab village of Tarshicha in the Galilee. Alkalay-Gut's interest in multimedia poetry has resulted in a disk with the jazz pianist, Liz Magnes and performances in the Kennedy Center in Washington. Her CD with Roi Yarkoni and Ishay Sommer, Thin Lips,(which can be heard in part and purchased on: http://www.pookh.com), and her poems form the texts of the CD Panic