Born in Australia, Clive James lives in Cambridge, England. He is the author of Unreliable Memoirs; a volume of selected poems, Opal Sunset; the best-selling Cultural Amnesia; and the translator of The Divine Comedy by Dante. He has written for the New York Times Book Review, The New Yorker, and The Atlantic. He is an Officer of the Order of Australia and a Commander of the Order of the British Empire.

Clive Chafer is a professional actor, director, and producer, as well as a theater instructor. He is the founder of TheatreFIRST, Oakland's only professional, season-producing theater company, where he served as artistic director until 2008. He teaches classical dramatic literature and other subjects at the University of San Francisco.