Salman Rushdie is the author of ten previous novels-including Midnight's Children (for which he won the Booker Prize in 1981, the Booker of Bookers in 1993 and, in 2008, the Best of the Booker). He has also published four works of non-fiction, a collection of short stories, and edited two fiction anthologies. In June 2007, Rushdie was appointed a Knight Bachelor by Queen Elizabeth II for services to literature. He holds the rank Commandeur in the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres of France and began a five-year term as Distinguished Writer in Residence at Emory University in 2007. In May 2008, he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He has served as president of The PEN American Center and is the chair of PEN's World Voices Festival of International Literature.

Reza Aslan, associate professor of creative writing at the University of California Riverside and author of the best-selling No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam, is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Los Angeles Institute for the Humanities, and the Pacific Council on International Policy. He serves on the board of directors of the Ploughshares Fund, which gives grants for peace and security issues; Abraham's Vision, an interfaith peace organization; and PEN USA, which champions the rights of writers under siege around the world.