Otohiko Kaga (1929-2023), one of Japan's few Christian writers, worked as a hospital and prison psychiatrist before becoming a novelist. His studies in France inspired his 1967 debut novel, Furandoru no fuyu (Winter in Flanders), for which he received the Minister of Education Award for New Artists. Marshland, his second novel to be translated into English, was awarded the Osaragi Jiro Prize in 1986. In 2011, Kaga was recognized as a Person of Cultural Merit.

Albert Novick was born in New York City in 1948. He served in the United States Air Force and attended San Francisco State University. He studied Japanese at the Waseda University Language Research Institute, then graduated from Meiji University and received a master's degree in sociology from Saitama University. He was a columnist and reporter for English- and Japanese-language newspapers. For the past thirty years, he has been a freelance writer and translator.