Rita Bischof, born in 1948 in Fulda, studied philosophy, sociology, and literary studies in Frankfurt am Main, Marburg, and Berlin. She had research and teaching stays in Paris and Florence and worked for many years at various universities. She published numerous books and essays, including works on Georges Bataille, Walter Benjamin, and Theodor Lessing. Since 2006, she has been a freelance writer and lives in Berlin.

Elisabeth Lenk, born in 1937 in Kassel, studied philosophy, sociology, and literary studies in Frankfurt and Paris under Theodor W. Adorno and Lucien Goldmann. Her doctoral dissertation was accompanied by an active correspondence, which has since been published, between Adorno and herself, spanning Frankfurt and Paris. Lenk was an active member of the SDS (Socialist German Student Union) and came into contact with André Breton and the Surrealists in France, as well as later with the Situationists. After completing her doctorate, she became a research assistant at the Seminar for General and Comparative Literary Studies at the Free University of Berlin under Peter Szondi in 1970. From 1976 until her retirement in 2006, she taught at the German Seminar of Leibniz University Hannover.