Mutsuo Takahashi is one of the most prolific authors in contemporary Japan, best known as a formally inventive poet and a master of the traditional poetic forms of tanka and haiku, although he has also written plays, novels and essays. He is especially well known for his open writing about male homoeroticism. Takahashi has, to date, published about thirty books of poetry, including tanka and haiku and three collected volumes.

Tian Yuan (1965-) first came to Japan as a government-financed student early in the 1990s. In 2003, he received a Doctorate in Literature for his study of the poetry of Shuntarô Tanikawa. He now teaches in Tôhoku University in Japan, and is chiefly engaged in the translation of contemporary Japanese poetry. His books of translation into Chinese so far include Selected Poems of Shuntarô Tanikawa (2 volumes) and An Alien: Selected Poems of Takashi Tsujii. Tian has been awarded literary prizes for poetry in China, America and Taiwan