Antonio Lobo Antunes was born in Lisbon, Portugal in 1942. He began writing as a child, but at his father's wishes, went to medical school instead of pursuing a career in writing. After completing his studies, Antunes was sent to Angola with the Portuguese Army. It was in a military hospital in Angola that Antunes first became interested in many of the subjects of his novels. Antunes lives in Lisbon, where he continues to write and practice psychiatry. Karen C. Sherwood Sotelino (BA Stanford; MA, PhD UC Santa Cruz), born in San Francisco, California, has translated novels by Machado de Assis, Raduan Nassar and Raul Brandão . She has taught English, Portuguese and translation at Associação Alumni, São Paulo, and Stanford