Knopf, Alfred A. (1892-1984). President of New York publisher Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. Knopf received his BA from Columbia University in New York City in 1912 and founded Alfred Knopf, Inc., in 1915 with his future wife Blanche Wolf. They married in 1916, and their son Alfred “Pat” Knopf was born in 1918. Cather chose him as her publisher beginning with Youth and the Bright Medusa (1920) and One of Ours (1922), partly because she was dissatisfied with the promotion of her books by Houghton Mifflin but also because she recognized the high quality of Knopf's books, as well as what she regarded as his intelligent advertising. Knopf was noted for publishing the work of leading European and South American writers in translation, as well as original works. Knopf and Cather’s extensive correspondence testifies to their mutual professional respect and to what also became an important personal friendship.

Llona, Victor Manuel (1886-1953). Peruvian-French writer and translator. Born in Lima, Peru, Victor Llona was raised and educated in Paris, France, where he entered the cosmopolitan café scene as a teenager. In 1906 he moved with his parents to Chicago, IL, returned to Paris in 1913 but left for New York City at the outbreak of World War I. On his return to France he became friends with both French and American expatriate writers and launched a career translating dozens of American novels into French. His translation of Cather’s My Ántonia (1918), Mon Antonia (1924), was one of his earliest translations. Before his return to France he married Florence Nelson of Chicago. They had two children, Doris and Eric, and his wife collaborated with him on some of his translations. The couple later divorced.