McDougall was Research Professor in Translation and Acting Director of the Research Centre for Translation at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and Emeritus Professor of Chinese at the University of Edinburgh at the time of publication. Her translations include works by Bei Dao, Ah Cheng, Chen Kaige and Zhu Guangqian.;Wong received her PhD from the Chinese University of Hong Kong. She was a senior instructor in the Department of Chinese Language and Literature at the Chinese University of Hong Kong at the time of publication, where she taught courses in literary theory, women in literature and Hong Kong literature.