WIS_x0141_AWA SZYMBORSKA (1923-2012) was a Polish poet who received international recognition when she won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1996. Collections of her poems that have been translated into English include People on a Bridge (1990), View with a Grain of Sand- Selected Poems (1995), Miracle Fair (2001), Monologue of a Dog (2005), and Map- Collected and Final Poems (2015) in which the poem "Love at First Sight" first appeared. Szymborska lived most of her life in Krakow; she studied Polish literature and society at Jagiellonian University and worked as an editor and columnist. A selection of her reviews was published in English under the title Nonrequired Reading- Prose Pieces (2002). She received the Polish PEN Club prize, the Goethe Prize, and the Herder Prize. BEATRICE GASCA QUEIRAZZA is an Italian illustrator and graphic designer based in Torino, Italy. She studied illustration and animation at Institute European Design in Milan and studied painting and screenprinting at Saint Martin's School in London. Her favorite materials are pencil, ink, collage and digital color.

Clare Cavanagh received an NBCC award for criticism and a PEN Translation prize for her work, with Polish poet and translator Stanislaw Baranczak (1946-2014), on Szymborska's poetry.