Winner of the National Book Award for translation and a graduate of Harvard University, Austryn Wainhouse left the United States for Paris partway through graduate work at the University of Iowa. He has worked in France as an editor and translator ever since. He was the first to translate the Marquis de Sade, including de Sade's 120 Days of Sodom, Juliette, and Justine. And he has translated the works of many other vital writers, including Pierre Klossowski, Georges Bataille, Simone de Beauvoir, and Jean Cocteau. Hedyphagetica, his only work of fiction, was first published by the Olympia Press. Wainhouse lives in the South of France.