Xi Chuan 西川 (pen name of Liu Jun 刘军) is a poet, essayist, and translator who currently teaches classical Chinese literature at the Central Academy for Fine Arts. His poetry has been widely anthologized, and he has received numerous prizes and honors including the Modern Chinese Poetry Award (1994), the national Lu Xun Literature Prize (2001), and the Zhuang Zhongwen Literary Award (2003).
Lucas Klein is a father, writer, and translator, as well as assistant professor in the School of Chinese at the University of Hong Kong. His translation Notes on the Mosquito: Selected Poems of Xi Chuan (New Directions) won the 2013 Lucien Stryk Asian Translation Prize. Other publications include October Dedications, his translations of the poetry of Mang Ke (Zephyr, 2018), and contributions to Li Shangyin (NYRB, 2018), as well as the monograph The Organization of Distance: Poetry, Translation, Chineseness (Brill, 2018). His translations of the poetry of Duo Duo, forthcoming from Yale University Press, recently won a PEN/Heim Translation Fund grant.