Marie Darrieussecq's first book, Pig Tales, became an overnight sensation and bestseller, selling more than 300,000 copies and translated into more than thirty languages--since then, she has gone on to publish twenty more, including Being Here, a literary investigation into the life of the artist Paula Modersohn-Becker, and the novels Men, The Baby, and Our Life in the Forest. The New Yorker described her as France's "best young novelist," and she is recognized as one of the leading voices of French contemporary literature. Her novel Men was awarded the Prix Médicis and the Prix des Prix in 2013.

Penny Hueston's translations from French include novels by Emmanuelle Salasc and Patrick Modiano and eight books by Marie Darrieussecq. She has been shortlisted for the JQ-Wingate Prize, the Warwick Prize for Women in Translation, twice for the Scott Moncrief Prize, and twice for the New South Wales Premier's Translation Prize, and she was the winner of the 2020 Medal for Excellence in Translation.