Gerhard Roth (1942-2022) was born in Graz, the son of a medical doctor and a nurse. He originally intended to study medicine, but soon discontinued his studies. For ten years Roth worked as a computer programmer to support his growing family, but since the mid-1970s he has been exclusively a writer. His major works consist of a cycle of seven novels, Die Archive des Schweigens (The Archives of Silence), and another novel cycle, Orkus (Hades). Hell is empty -And all the devils are here! is the second in a projected trilogy about Venice. His work has earned extensive critical acclaim over the years, including the Döblin Prize (1983), the Kreisky Prize (2002), and the Grand Austrian State Prize (2016), among many others. Since 1986, he and his wife, Senta, have been living in Vienna and in a small farmhouse in Styria. Todd C. Hanlin (1941-2022) was Emeritus Professor of German at the University of Arkansas. He authored a book on Franz Kafka, edited Charles Sealsfield's Austria as it is, and a collection of essays entitled Beyond Vienna: Contemporary Literature from the Austrian Provinces; he wrote on numerous Austrian authors, translated a dozen novels and a similar number of plays, as well as a volume on The Best of Austrian Science Fiction. Hanlin translated six novels by Gerhard Roth, including the Venice trilogy, all for Ariadne Press.