Marguerite Duras was a French novelist, playwright, and filmmaker. Born in French Indochina, she moved to France to study mathematics and political science. During World War II, she joined the French Resistance and emerged as a key figure in the experimental Nouveau Roman movement of the 1950s. Her breakthrough international success came with The Lover, a semi-autobiographical novel that won the Prix Goncourt. She made significant contributions to cinema, writing the acclaimed screenplay for Hiroshima Mon Amour. Known for her minimalist style and exploration of desire, memory, and colonialism, Duras produced over seventy works across multiple genres, establishing herself as one of France's most influential literary voices.
Olivia Baes is a French-American multidisciplinary artist based in Catalonia. Her translations include Marguerite Duras’s The Easy Life and Me & Other Writing, co-translated with Emma Ramadan. She is developing her first feature film, Sirena, with 15L Films, and is curator of the James Baes Foundation.
Emma Ramadan is a literary translator and recipient of the PEN Translation Prize, the Albertine Prize, and an NEA Translation Fellowship. Her translations include Anne Garréta’s Sphinx, Virginie Despentes’s Pretty Things, Kamel Daoud’s Zabor, or the Psalms, and Abdellah Taïa’s A Country for Dying.