Stefan R. Landsberger holds a PhD in Sinology from Leiden University, Netherlands. He is a Lecturer at the Documentation and Research Centre for Modern China, Sinological Institute, Leiden University, and one of the editors of the journal China Information. Landsberger has one of the largest private collections of Chinese propaganda posters in the world. He has published extensively on topics related to Chinese propaganda, and maintains an extensive website exclusively devoted to this genre of political communications.

Anchee Min was born and raised in Mao's China. A staunch party supporter, she was awarded the lead role in a film to be made by Mao's wife, Jiang Ching, but the death of Mao soon after caused the film to be cancelled. In 1984, Min emigrated to the United States and later wrote the bestselling biography Becoming Madame Mao.

Poet and fiction writer Duo Duo was born in Beijing, China in 1951 and emigrated in 1989, later settling in the Netherlands, where he became a writer in residence at the Sinological Institute of Leiden University. He is considered one of the most outstanding poets to emerge after the Cultural Revolution.