Bernardo Atxaga was born in Gipuzkoa in Spain in 1951 and lives in the Basque Country, writing in Basque and Spanish. He is a prizewinning novelist and poet, whose books, including Obabakoak and The Accordionist's Son, have won critical acclaim in Spain and abroad. His works have been translated into twenty-two languages.Margaret Jull Costa has been a literary translator from Spanish and Portugese for over twenty years, translating such writers as José Saramago, Eça de Queiroz, Luis Fernando Verissimo and Fernando Pessoa. Her work has brought her a number of prizes, the most recent of which was the 2010 Premio Valle-Inclán for Javier Marías’ Your Face Tomorrow 3: Poison, Shadow and Farewell.

"A dark comedy about the vanity of human desires which deftly balances compassion and cynicism" Financial Times "Bizarrely funny and beautifully crafted" Times Literary Supplement "Undeniably compelling" Daily Mail "A brilliantly inventive writer...He understands the nature of storytelling and is at once terribly moving and wildly funny" -- A. S. Byatt "Seven Houses in France is an enjoyable, somewhat frightening novel by one of Europe's best novelists... Atxaga is still the master of a complex story, told with deceptive simplicity" -- Michael Eaude Independent