The translator of The Stone Building, Sevinç Türkkan is among the few women at the University of Rochester who translate other women and the only one who translates from a non-Western language. The writer, Aslı Erdoğan was arrested for her pro-human rights stance and remained in prison for 4 months without trial following the failed military coup in Turkey. Erdoğan is very prominent in Europe thanks to the availability of French, German, Italian, and Dutch translations of all her books. The Stone Building is only the second of her books to be translated into English.