Szilárd Borbély (1963-2014) was born in Fehérgyarmat in northeastern Hungary and studied Hungarian philology and literature at the University of Debrecen, where he later taught. An authority on Hungarian literature of the late-Baroque period as well as a writer, Borbély was awarded several literary prizes, including the prestigious Palladium Prize in 2005. Widely considered to be one of the most important European poets of the post-Communist period, Borbély's poetic concerns were broad but generally encompassed the marginalized in Hungarian society.
Ottilie Mulzet is a translator of poetry and prose, as well as a literary critic. She was awarded the Tibor Déry Prize in 2020 and the National Book Award for Translated Literature in 2019 for her translation of László Krasznahorkai's Baron Wenckheim's Homecoming. In addition to In a Bucolic Land, she has translated Borbély's novel The Dispossessed and his verse collections Berlin-Hamlet (NYRB Poets) and Final Matters: Selected Poems, 2004-2010. She is based in Prague.