William Gardner Smith (1927-1974) was a journalist, novelist, and editor. His first novel, Last of the Conquerors, was published in 1948, followed by Anger at Innocence, South Street, The Stone Face, and Return to Black America. Adam Shatz is a contributing editor at the London Review of Books and a contributing writer to The New York Times Magazine, The New York Review of Books, and The New Yorker, among other publications. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.