Marek Hlasko, known as the Polish James Dean, made his literary debut in 1956 with a short story collection. Born in 1933, he was known for his brutal prose style and his unflinching eye toward his surroundings. In 1956, Hlasko went to France; while there, he fell out of favor with the Polish communist authorities, and was given a choice of returning home and renouncing some of his work, or staying abroad forever. He chose the latter, and spent the next decade living and writing in many countries, from France to West Germany to the United States to Israel. Hlasko died in 1969 of a fatal mixture of alcohol and sleeping pills in Wiesbaden, West Germany, preparing for another sojourn in Israel. Besides Killing the Second Dog, his translated works include the novels Eighth Day of the Week, All Backs Were Turned, Next Stop – Paradise,and The Graveyard, and a memoir, Beautiful Twentysomethings.

Tomasz Mirkowicz: Tomasz Mirkowicz, translator of American and British fiction, was born in Warsaw in 1953. He translated into Polish the works of Ken Kesey, George Orwell, Jerzy Kosinski, Harry Matthews, Robert Coover, Alan Sillitoe and Charles Bukowski. Mirkowicz, also a fiction writer and critic, died in 2003.

Lesley Chamberlain: Lesley Chamberlain is a British journalist, travel writer and historian of Russian and German culture and has published short stories and novels and written about food. Her works include Nietzsche in Turin and The Philosophy Steamer Lenin and the Exile of the Intelligentsia.