Anna Nerkagi was born in 1951 in the Polar Ural tundra, and she belongs to the Indigenous Nenets community. As a child, she was separated from her parents by the Soviet authorities and sent to a boarding school, and she later studied at Tyumen Technical University. She published her debut novel, Aniko of the Nogo Clan, in 1976, and in 1980 she returned to the Yamal Peninsula and the nomadic way of life. There she started the Tundra School for Nenets Children, where she still works as a teacher, blending traditional and modern forms of education. Nerkagi’s work has been translated into five languages, and White Moss was adapted into the first-ever Nenets-language feature film.

Irina Sadovina translates literature from Russian and Mari. Her translations and writing appeared in publications like Prototype, Meniscus, Calvert Journal, and ellipse. She received the 2021 Australasian Association of Writing Programs Translation Prize and was a 2021-2022 National Centre for Writing Emerging Translator Mentee.