Over the past twenty years Wajdi Mouawad has established himself, both in Canada and in Europe, as a uniquely original player on the contemporary theatre scene, acclaimed for his direct and uncompromising narratives and his spare and compelling theatre aesthetic. In all his work, from his own plays (over fifteen to date, including Tideline, Scorched, Forests and Heavens and adaptations (including Ce¿line's Journey to the End of the Night and Cervantes' Don Quixote), the productions he has directed (including Macbeth, The Trojan Women and Three Sisters), to novels (Visage Retrouve¿, Anima) Wajdi Mouawad expresses the conviction that "art bears witness to human existence through the prism of beauty." Wajdi Mouawad's plays have been translated in more than twenty languages and presented in all parts of the world, including Great-Britain and Germany.

Linda Gaboriau is a Montreal-based dramaturge and literary translator. She has worked as a freelance journalist for the CBC as well as the Montreal Gazette, and worked in Canadian and Quebecois theatre. Gaboriau has won awards for her translations of more than 100 plays and novels by Quebec writers, including many of the Quebec plays best known to English Canadian audiences. She is the founding director of the Banff International Literary Translation Centre.