Sigrún Pálsdóttir (Reykjavík, 1967) is a writer and historian. She completed a PhD in the History of Ideas at the University Oxford in 2001, after which she was a research fellow and lecturer at the University of Iceland. She worked as the editor of Saga, the principal peer-reviewed journal for Icelandic history, from 2008 to 2016. Her previous titles include the historical biography Thora. A Bishop’s Daughter and Uncertain Seas, a story of a young couple and their three children who were killed when sailing from New York to Iceland aboard a ship torpedoed by a German submarine in 1944. Sigrún’s work has been nominated for the Icelandic Literary Prize, Icelandic Women’s Literature Prize, Hagþenkir Non-fiction Prize, and the DV Culture Prize. Uncertain Seas was chosen the best biography in 2013 by booksellers in Iceland.

Lytton Smith, a poet, translator, and teacher, is a former NEA Literature Translation Fellow and the author of five books of poetry, most recently The Square, winner of the New Michigan Press/Diagram Chapbook Contest. He has translated over a dozen novels and nonfiction works from Icelandic, twice being a finalist for the Best Translated Book Award. He lives in Rochester, NY.