Aleksandar Hemon is a Bosnian-American author, essayist, critic, television writer, and screenwriter. He is best known for the novels Nowhere Man (2002) and The Lazarus Project (2008), and his scriptwriting as a co-writer of The Matrix Resurrections (2021).

Lazarus “Jerome” Averbuch (1889–1908) was a 19-year-old Russian-born Jewish immigrant to Chicago who was shot and killed by Chicago Chief of Police George M. Shippy on March 2, 1908. The incident occurred during an era of public fear of foreign-born anarchists in the United States, following their involvement with the Haymarket affair in 1886. The exact circumstances of the shooting remain contested, but Averbuch's death has inspired speculation, ideological arguments, and works of fiction.