Marguerite Duras wrote dozens of plays, film scripts, and novels, including The Ravishing of Lol Stein, The Sea Wall, and Hiroshima, Mon Amour. She's most well known for The Lover which received the Goncourt prize in 1984 and was made into a film in 1992.

Kazim Ali is a poet, essayist, and novelist, and has published a translation of Water's Footfall by Sohrab Sepehri. He teaches at Oberlin College and the University of Southern Maine.

Libby Murphy teaches at Oberlin College. She has published articles on print culture and the First World War, and on the reception of Charlie Chaplin's films in wartime and postwar France.

Sharon Willis is a professor of French and Film & Media Studies at the University of Rochester.