Christian Lehnert was born in Dresden in 1969. Since 1995 he has published poetry with Suhrkamp Verlag, and in literary journals, including German Academy of Arts' Sinn und Form. In 2010, Lehnert's libretto for Hans Werner Henze's opera Phaedra was performed at the Barbican. Lehnert's work has been awarded several prizes including the Eichendorff Prize in 2016, and the German Prize for Nature Writing in 2018. He is the head of the Liturgical Studies department at the University of Leipzig.

Richard Sieburth is a translator from French and German, essayist, editor, and literary scholar. He has gained recognition for his translations of Friedrich Hölderlin, Gershom Scholem, Charles Baudelaire, Henri Michaux, and Walter Benjamin, among others. Sieburth is the editor of multiple volumes of Ezra Pound's writings and translations.