Pedro Juan Gutiérrez began his working life at the age of eleven, as an ice-cream vendor and newsboy. He is the author of Dirty Havana Trilogy, Tropical Animal and The Insatiable Spider Man, and several works of poetry. His latest novel, Our GG in Havana, was published by Faber in 2010. Natasha Wimmer is a translator of contemporary fiction and literary nonfiction from Spanish to English. She spent four formative years in Spain as a child and concentrated in Romance Languages and Literature as an undergraduate at Harvard University. She is a regular visiting lecturer at Princeton University and Columbia University, and she has written reviews and criticism for The Believer, The New York Times, and The Nation, among other publications. She is the recipient of an NEA Translation Grant, a PEN Translation Award, and an Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She lives in Brooklyn, New York, with her husband and two children.

"Grotesquely compelling...Pedro Juan Gutierrez appears destined to become a cult writer.' TLS 'A tale of human ingenuity and hidden hopefulness overcoming near-insuperable odds.' Guardian 'One of the sexiest books I have read in a long time.' David Profumo, Literary Review