Chen Guidi (陳桂棣; November 1942-) is a Chinese writer from Huaiyuan county, Anhui. The book A Survey of the Chinese Peasants (中国农民调查 / 中國農民調查 Zhōngguó Nóngmín Diàochá) which he co-wrote with his wife Wu Chuntao (1963-) was published in January 2004 but banned by the Communist Party in March of that year. It nevertheless won the 2004 Lettre Ulysses Award. It has been retitled and reprinted in English as Will the Boat Sink the Water.

Daniel Meltzer is an American lawyer and law professor, and is a presidential lawyer in the Obama Administration through June 1, 2010.

Meltzer received an A.B. in Economics from Harvard University in 1972, and a J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1975 where he was President of the Harvard Law Review. Upon graduation, he clerked first for Judge Carl E. McGowan of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, and then for Justice Potter Stewart of the United States Supreme Court. From 1977 to 1978, Meltzer was Special Assistant to the Secretary of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, Joseph Califano, Jr. Thereafter he worked three years in private practice with the District of Columbia firm of Williams & Connolly.

Meltzer joined the Law School faculty in 1982 as assistant professor, was promoted to full professor in 1987, served as associate dean 1989-93, was named the Story Professor of Law in 1998, and the vice dean for physical planning in 2003.

Meltzer co-authored several books on the federal court system, habeas corpus, and other subjects with Richard Fallon and David L. Shapiro. Criminal procedure was another of his specializations.

Yang Lian (楊煉 Yáng Liàn) is a Chinese poet associated with the Misty Poets and also with the Searching for Roots school. He was born in Bern, Switzerland in 1955 and raised in Beijing, where he attended primary school.

His education was interrupted by the outbreak of the Cultural Revolution after 1966. In 1974 he was sent to Changping county near Beijing to undergo 're-education through labor', where he undertook a variety of tasks including digging graves. In 1977, after the Cultural Revolution had ended and Mao Zedong had died, Yang returned to Beijing where he worked with the state broadcasting service.

Yang began writing traditional Chinese poetry while working in the countryside, despite this genre of poetry being officially proscribed under the rule of Mao Zedong. In 1979, he became involved with the group of poets writing for 'Today' (Jintian) magazine, and his style of poetry developed into the modernist, experimental style common within that group.

The 'Today' group attracted considerable controversy during the early 1980s, and the initially derogatory term of 'Misty Poets' was applied to them at this time. In 1983, Yang's poem 'Norlang' (the name of a waterfall in Tibet) was criticised as part of the Anti-Spiritual Pollution Campaign, and a warrant was put out for his arrest. He managed to escape after a tip-off from friends; the campaign ended shortly afterwards.

Filippo Turati (November 26, 1857 – March 29, 1932) was an Italian sociologist, poet and Socialist politician.

Born in Canzo, province of Como, he graduated in law at the University of Bologna in 1877, and participated in the Scapigliatura movement with the most important artists of the period in Milan, publishing poetry. His Inno dei Lavoratori ("Workers' Hymn"), adapted to music, became the most popular song of the nascent labor movement.

Turati became interested in politics, being attracted to the democratic movement before joining the more specific Socialist groups. His most important sociological work of this period is Il Delitto e la Questione Sociale, in which he examines how social conditions affect crime. He met Anna Kulischov while working on a survey of social conditions in Naples. Kulischov was an exile from Russia who had become the companion of Andrea Costa, an Anarchist leader - when she converted to Socialism, Costa followed, sending an important letter to his anarchist comrades in which he abandoned the movement. Kulischov and Costa had split by the time she met Turati. The two immediately fell in love, and lived together until her death in 1925.

Bertil Lintner is a Swedish journalist based in Thailand and the author of several works on Asia, including Blood Brothers: The Criminal Underworld of Asia and Great Leader, Dear Leader: Demystifying North Korea Under The Kim Clan.

Lintner is one of many blacklisted journalists who have not been allowed to enter Burma since 1985. Lintner has written numerous articles and books on Burma, and is considered to be one of the most knowledgeable foreign journalists on Burmese affairs. The previous Burmese government body, the State Peace and Development Council, said his reports on Burma were groundless and based on wishful thinking. Ironically, blacklisted journalists tend to garner better respect as primary sources, and due to this, Lintner was the first foreign journalist to learn about Aung San Suu Kyi's release from house arrest in 1995. Nowadays Lintner's main focuses have shifted to Laos and North Korea. He is a regular contributor to several publications including the Swedish daily Svenska Dagbladet, YaleGlobal Online, the Danish daily Politiken, Wall Street Journal and Asia Times Online.