Maria Rosa Cutrufelli is the author of several volumes of short fiction, as well as two novels, Canto al deserto and Il denaro in corpo. She lives in Rome. Vincent J. Bertolini is a Harper Instructor in the College of the University of Chicago. He most recently translated Dacia Maraini's "Searching for Emma: Gustave Flaubert and Madame Bovary," also published by The University of Chicago Press.