About the Author

Nikolai Leskov was born in 1831 in the village of Gorokhovo in Russia. He began his writing career as a journalist living in Kiev, and later settled in St. Petersburg, where he published many short stories and novellas, including "The Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk" (1865), "The Sealed Angel" (1873), "The Enchanted Wanderer" (1873), and "Lefty" (1882). He died in February 1895.
Together, Richard Pevear and Larissa 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 their versions of Dostoevsky's "The Brothers Karamazov" and Tolstoy's "Anna Karenina"), and their translation of Dostoevsky's "Demons" was one of three nominees for the same prize. They are married and live in France.