Abert Cohen was born on the island of Corfu in 1895. He emigrated to France at the age of five on a passport issued by the Ottoman Empire and was raised in Marseilles. Although he chose to become a Swiss citizen after completing law school in Geneva, he claims that his true homeland was the French language. Cohen's tragicomic novels Solal, Mangeclous, Belle de Seigneur, and Les Valeureux attempt to reconnect man to his lost humanity. Belle du Signeur was awarded the French Academy's Grand Prix du Roman.
Bella Cohen was born in London on 1919. During WWII, she worked at the Free French Headquarters and with the Intergovernmental Committee on Refugees. She met Albert Cohen in 1943 and shared a life with him from 1947 until his death in 1981. Her translation of Book of My Mother was a labor of love.
