Dame Cecily Isabel Fairfield DBE (1892-1983), known as REBECCA WEST, or Dame Rebecca West, was a British author, journalist, literary critic, and travel writer. She wrote in many genres and reviewed books for The Times, the New York Herald Tribune, The Sunday Telegraph, and The New Republic.

BENJAMIN MOSER is the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Sontag: Her Life and Work. His first book, Why This World: A Biography of Clarice Lispector, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and a New York Times Notable Book of 2009.