Alexander Pushkin (Author)
Pushkin, Russia's greatest poet, was born in Moscow in 1799. He was exiled for his liberal views on serfdom and autocracy, but this allowed him the freedom to write some of his greatest works, including the novel in verse Eugene Onegin. He died in 1837 after being fatally wounded in a duel.
Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky (Translator)
Pevear and Volokhonsky have translated works by Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Chekhov, Gogol, Bulgakov and Pasternak. They were twice awarded the PEN/Book-of-the-Month Club Translation Prize (for Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov and Tolstoy's Anna Karenina). They are married and live in France.