Sinan Antoon is a poet, novelist, and translator. He is associate professor at the Gallatin School, New York University, and cofounder and coeditor of the cultural page of Jadaliyya. The Corpse Washer is his second novel. He lives in New York City.

Ken Chen is the executive director of the Asian American Writers’ Workshop and the author of Juvenilia (Yale University Press, 2010), winner of the Yales Series of Younger Poets.