Italo Svevo (1861-1928) was an Italian writer and businessman. He published two novels in the 1890s, A Life and As a Man Grows Older (the latter available from NYRB Classics), but after they were dismissed by critics and ignored by the public, he abandoned literature and went to work in his father-in-law's paint business. With the support of James Joyce, he returned to writing and published Zeno's Conscience in 1923 to international acclaim. Svevo had finished a new book and was at work on another when he was killed in a car crash in 1928. Frederika Randall (1948-2020) was a writer, reporter, and translator. Among her translations are Ippolito Nievo's Confessions of an Italian and, for NYRB Classics, Guido Morselli's Dissipatio H.G. and The Communist. She received the National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowship for Translation and the PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grant, and with Sergio Luzzatto, the Cundill Prize. Nathaniel Richis the author ofLosing Earth- A Recent History,a finalist for the PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Award;the novelsKing Zeno,Odds Against Tomorrow, andThe Mayor's Tongue; and the Little Bookroom titleSan Francisco Noir. He is awriter-at-large for theNew York Times Magazineand a regular contributor toTheAtlantic,Harper's, andTheNew York Review of Books. He lives in New Orleans.