Léon Werth (1878-1955) was a prominent French-Jewish writer, art critic, and close friend to Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. A well-known commentator on French society during both World Wars, Werth spent the years of the Second World War in hiding from the Nazis, composing Déposition.
David Ball is Professor Emeritus of French and Comparative Literature at Smith College. His translations include a Henri Michaux anthology that won the MLA's prize for literary translation, and Diary of the Dark Years, 1940-1944, winner of the French-American Foundation Translation Prize for Nonfiction.