ALEXANDER PUSHKIN (1799-1837) was a poet, playwright, and novelist who achieved literary fame before he was twenty. He was born into the Russian nobility and his great-grandfather was the African-born general Abram Petrovich Gannibal. Pushkin's radical politics brought him censorship and periods of banishment, but he eventually married a society beauty and became part of court life. Notoriously touchy about his honor, he died at age thirty-seven in a duel with his wife's alleged lover.

About the Translators: RICHARD PEVEAR and LARISSA VOLOKHONSKY have translated works by Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Chekhov, Gogol, Bulgakov, Leskov, 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.