Homero Aridjis, born in Contepec, Michoacán, Mexico in 1940, has published 19 collections of poetry, 17 novels, and 15 volumes of short stories, plays, essays, and books for children, and his work has been translated into fifteen languages. He has received important literary prizes, including the Xavier Villaurrutia (Mexico), the Diana-Novedades International Fiction Prize (Mexico), the Roger Caillois, for the ensemble of his work (France), the Grinzane-Cavour (Italy) for 1492 The Life and Times of Juan Cabezón of Castile, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, The Smederevo Golden Key for Poetry (Serbia), the Premio Letterario Camaiore Internazionale (Italy), the Violani Landi University of Bologna Poetry Prize (Italy), the Premio Letterario Internazionale L’Aquila Laudomia Bonanni (Italy), the Erendira State Prize for the Arts (Mexico) and two Guggenheim Fellowships. He has been Mexico’s Ambassador to Switzerland, The Netherlands and UNESCO, and served two terms as International President of PEN International, during which he strove to make PEN less Eurocentric.

Among his books in English are The Child Poet, 1492 The Life and Times of Juan Cabezón of Castile, Eyes to See Otherwise, A Time of Angels, Solar Poems, Maria the Monarch and News of the Earth. A visiting professor at New York University, Indiana University and Columbia University, Aridjis was Nichols Professor for the Humanities and the Public Sphere at the University of California, Irvine. As founder and director general of the Michoacán Institute of Culture he held memorable poetry festivals, bringing to Mexico Jorge Luis Borges, Günter Grass, Tomas Tranströmer, Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Kazuko Shiraishi, Seamus Heaney, Andrei Voznesenski, Katerina Anghelaki-Rooke, Vasko Popa, Ted Hughes, Breyten Breytenbach and many others. In 1985, Aridjis marshalled 99 other renowned artists and intellectuals in Mexico to found the legendary Group of 100, an activist organization that addresses national and international environmental and ethical issues. A champion of grey whales, monarch butterflies, sea turtles, and rain forests, and one of the earliest voices to sound the alarm about climate change, Aridjis has been called the green conscience of his country. His passionate defense of the Earth has been acknowledged with various international awards, including the UNEP Global 500 Award, the Orion Society’s John Hay Award for Nature Writing, and the Millennial Award for International Environmental Leadership given by Mikhail Gorbachev.

Lorna Scott Fox is a journalist, editor and translator who lived for many years in Mexico and Spain. Her journalism and criticism have appeared in the London Review of Books, the Times Literary Supplement, and The Nation, among other magazines. Her translations from Spanish and French include Teresa, My Love by Julia Kristeva, Marriage as a Fine Art by Julia Kristeva and Philippe Sollers, Petite Fleur by Iosi Havilio and Narcoland by Anabel Hernández.