Salvador Dalí (1904-1989) was one of the most colourful and controversial figures in 20th century art, renowned for his striking Surrealist painting style. He was strongly influenced by the writings of Sigmund Freud, as well as the Paris Surrealists who sought to establish the "greater reality" of the human subconscious over reason. Some of his most famous works include The Persistence of Memory, and the two Surrealist films Un Chien andalou (The Andalusian Dog) and L'Âge d'or (The Golden Age), made with the Spanish director Luis Buñuel. Hidden Faces is his only novel, and was first published in 1944.

Haakon Chevalier was an American writer, translator and professor of French literature at the University of California, Berkely. He translated many works by Salvador Dalí, André Malraux, Vladimir Pozner, Louis Aragon, Frantz Fanon and Victor Vasarely into English.