Jozef Wittlin (born 1896) was a major Polish poet, novelist, essayist and translator. He studied in Vienna, where he met Joseph Roth and Rainer Maria Rilke, before serving in the Austro-Hungarian army in the First World War.

As well as Salt of the Earth, he published numerous collections of poetry, many of which were characterised by their strong pacifist sentiments. With the outbreak of WWII he fled to France and then to New York, where he died in 1976.

Philippe Sands is Professor of Law at University College London and a practising barrister at Matrix Chambers. He frequently appears before international courts, and has been involved in many of the most important cases of recent years, including Pinochet, Congo, Yugoslavia, Rwanda, Iraq, Guantanamo and the Rohingya of Myanmar.

He is the author of LAWLESS WORLD, TORTURE TEAM and the Sunday Times bestselling EAST WEST STREET, which also won the Baillie Gifford Prize and was named Non-fiction Book of the Year at the British Book Awards.