Jan-Philipp Sendker, born in Hamburg in 1960, was the American correspondent for Stern from 1990 to 1995, and its Asian correspondent from 1995 to 1999. In 2000 he published Cracks in the Wall, a nonfiction book about China. The Art of Hearing Heartbeats, his first novel, is an international best seller. He lives in Potsdam with his family.

Daniel Bowles is associate professor of German Studies at Boston College. His translation of Christian Kracht's Eurotrash was long-listed for the 2025 International Booker Prize, and his English rendering of Kracht's Imperium won the Helen & Kurt Wolff Translator's Prize in 2016.