720 Times Hiroshima in My Land

Ariirau Richard Vivi, who was named after her Tuamotuan great-great-grandmother and uses her Tahitian first name as her nom de plume, was born in Pirae, Tahiti, in 1972 and lived in France from ages four to twenty-five. She moved to the United States in 1997 to teach French, an experience overshadowed by the trauma of seeking an abortion there, which she then explored in her most controversial novel. In 2005 she returned to her homeland, where she teaches English and writes. (updated 10/2022)

Jeffrey Zuckerman is a translator of French, including books by the artists Jean-Michel Basquiat and the Dardenne brothers, the queer writers Jean Genet and Hervé Guibert, and the Mauritian novelists Ananda Devi, Shenaz Patel, and Carl de Souza. His translation of the Tahitian novelist Titaua Peu’s Pina (Restless Books, 2022) won the French Voices Grand Prize. In 2020 he was named a Chevalier in the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government. (updated 10/2022)