Paul Leroy Robeson was born in 1898 in Princeton, New Jersey, to  William Drew Robeson and Maria Louisa Bustill. In 1915 he enrolled at Rutgers College, New Jersey, and in 1920 he entered Columbia University Law School. In 1922 he married his life-long partner Eslanda 'Essie' Cardozo Goode, and the following year he graduated from Columbia. Robeson launched his acting career in 1920 - a career that brought him to London in 1922, and again in 1925 to star in the Eugene O'Neill Play, The Emperor Jones.

Robeson returned to London in April 1928 and spring 1930 to act in Show Boat and Othello, respectively. After a visit to Moscow in 1934, his political views became increasingly influenced by socialist and Communist ideals. He also started associating with key African figures such as Jomo Kenyatta and Kwame Nkrumah. In 1934, he acted in Alexander Korda's Sanders of the River, a performance he later repudiated as glorifying British imperialism. His repudiation of British imperialism and growing support of the working class was applauded by Stafford Cripps, the leading Labour politician. There is also evidence that Robeson attended a League of Coloured Peoples meeting, led by Harold Moody, in 1934 (Duberman, p. 624, n. 38).

In the mid-1930s, Robeson met Cedric Dover who broadcast on Robeson for BBC Radio to India. The talk is published in George Orwell's collection Talking to India (1943). In Half-Caste (1937), Dover lauded Robeson: 'To know him, to feel his charm and unusually wide culture, is a privilege; to hear him sing at a packed Albert Hall recital is a spiritual experience' (p. 226). In the late 1930s, Robeson met Krishna Menon, Secretary of the India League. Menon enlisted Robeson's support in the struggle for Indian independence. In January 1938, Robeson visited Spain to support the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War. In June of that year, Robeson acted in Plant in the Sun. In the audience were Jawaharlal Nehru, his sister Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit and Krishna Menon who had just come back to London after touring Spain; the four of them became friends, and Robeson and Nehru met on several other occasions. On 27 June 1938, at the India League meeting in Kingsway Hall, Nehru and Robeson spoke on internationalism and the need for unified action against Fascism. Among the other speakers were Stafford Cripps, Harold Laski, Ellen Wilkinson and Rajani Palme Dutt.

Robeson's left-leaning politics were put to the test at the outbreak of the Second World War and the Nazi-Soviet agreement. He had discussed his views on the Soviet Union with other English socialists such as Harold Laski and George Bernard Shaw. Now in the United States, Robeson continued his socialist agitations and with the onset of the Cold War he was under surveillance, his passport was revoked and he was called before the Un-American Activities Committee. When his passport was returned in 1958, he immediately travelled to Europe again. In the 1960s, he went into semi-retirement and he died of a stroke on 23 January 1976 in Philadelphia.

G. V. Desani was born in Nairobi, Kenya, where his parents were working as wood merchants. The family returned to Karachi in 1914, where Desani was educated. He arrived in Britain at the age of 17, to escape from an arranged marriage. When he arrived in England in 1926, he was befriended by George Lansbury, who helped him acquire a reader's pass to the British Museum Reading Room. During this period he also found work as an actor in films. Furthermore, he worked as a foreign corespondent for a number of Indian newspapers and news agencies, such as the Associated Press, Reuters and The Times of India. He returned to India in 1928, touring Rajasthan, on which he subsequently lectured extensively for the Bombay, Baroda and Central India Railway Company.

Desani returned to Britain in the summer of 1939, only weeks before the outbreak of the Second World War.  He continued to work as a writer, journalist, and broadcaster for the Indian Section of the BBC Eastern Service and the Home Division. Desani broadcast both in Hindustani and in English and was praised for his wit, humour and ability as a script-writer. He also acted in radio plays. Furthermore, Desani lectured for the Ministry of Information and the Imperial Institute, regularly touring the regions and speaking to soldiers, schools and university colleges. These lectures featured as one of his Talks Programmes in Hindustani, titled 'My Lecture Tours' (broadcast 8 May 1943). They were widely praised and drew large audiences.

During this period, he wrote his best known work of fiction, the experimental novel All About Mr. Hatterr (later republished and revised as All About H. Hatterr). On publication the book was very well received by critics. For example, T. S. Eliot praised it as a remarkably original book: 'It is amazing that anyone should be able to sustain a piece of work in this style and tempo and at such length'. The critic C. E. M. Joad compared the book to 'Joyce and Miller with a difference: the difference being due to a dash of Munchhausen and the Arabian Nights'.  With its inventive use of language and its endorsement of hybridity, the work is a trailblazer for the fiction of Salman Rushdie, who has acknowledged its influence.

While in England, Desani also published his ‘poetic play’ Hali, as well as short fiction, sketches and essays. Shortly after the publication of Hali, Desani left Britain and returned to India. He was offered a position as cultural ambassador for Jawaharlal Nehru, however he did not take this up. In 1959 he travelled to Burma to study Buddhist and Hindu culture. During the 1950s and 1960 he wrote a regular column, 'Very High, Very Low', as well as articles for The Times of India and Illustrated Weekly of India. In 1967 he was appointed Professor of Philosophy at the University of Texas, Austin, a position he held until his retirement in 1978. He spent the final years of his life in Dallas.