Charles Webb was born in 1939 in San Francisco. The Graduate was his first novel; since then he has published Love, Roger, The Marriage of a Young Stockbroker, The Abolitionist of Clark Gable Place and Elsinor.

Hanif Kureishi was born and brought up in Kent. He is the author of numerous novels, short story collections, screenplays and plays. In 1984 his My Beautiful Laundrette received an Oscar nomination for Best Screenplay. His second film, Sammy and Rosie Get Laid, was followed by London Kills Me, which he also directed. The Buddha of Suburbia won the Whitbread Prize for Best First Novel in 1990. His second novel, The Black Album, was published in 1995 and his first collection of short stories, Love in a Blue Time, was published in 1997. Intimacy, his third novel, was published in 1998. Midnight All Day was published in 2000, followed in 2001 by Gabriel's Gift and his collection of essays, The Word and the Bomb. Hanif Kureishi lives in West London.