Ruth Lillegraven was born in 1978 in Hardanger, Norway, where she grew up on a small farm. She debuted as an author with a poetry collection in 2005. Since then she has written sixteen books, including children's books, several poetry collections, a novel, and two plays. Her work has been translated into Dutch, English, French, German, and Spanish. Among other prizes, she has won both the Brage Prize and the Nynorsk Literature Prize (for the poetry collections Urd and Sickle). Her first crime novel is the prize-winning Everything Is Mine, which has become an international bestseller.

Diane Oatley is a writer, independent scholar, and translator. She began her undergraduate studies of English literature at the University of Maine and went on to complete an MA in comparative literature at the University of Oslo. Her poetry has been published in anthologies and journals in England, Norway, Spain, and India, and she is the author of three poetry chapbooks. In 2014 Diane received NORLA's annual Translator's Award for nonfiction, and two of her literary translations have been long-listed for the International Dublin Literary Award. She is a member of the Norwegian Non-Fiction Writers and Translators Association and the Norwegian chapter of PEN International.