Eiji Hattori studied philosophy at Kyoto University and the Sorbonne before a career at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris. Hattori organized two large symposia with UNESCO on 'cultural diversity and transversal values' in Paris and Tokyo. He participated in Japanese-Islamic dialogues in Tehran (2005), Tokyo (2007), and Riyadh (2008). Gray translated and edited his book Letters from the Silk Roads (University Press of America, 2000). Deep Encounters is the offspring of that successful collaboration. Wallace Gray, Ph.D., a philosopher and comparativist, has lived and taught in Japan. He has published translations of correspondence with ordinary Japanese citizens, dialogues involving his graduate school professor, Nels FerrZ, as well as contemporaries such as Billy Graham and Paul Tillich, and contributions to John C. Plott's Global History of Philosophy series. Gray has done considerable research on Toyohiko Kagawa and the 'new religion' Oomoto.