Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev (1818-1883) was born into a wealthy family of the Russian landed gentry and educated in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Berlin. He made his name as a writer with A Sportsman's Sketches, an unvarnished picture of Russian country life that is said to have influenced Tsar Alexander II's decision to liberate the serfs. In later years, Turgenev lived in Europe, returning only rarely to his native country. He was the author of poems, stories, plays, and six novels, the most celebrated of which include Fathers and Children, Rudin, Virgin Soil and On the Eve. Nicolas Pasternak Slater is a translator of Russian literature. He has translated work by Anton Chekhov, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Leo Tolstoy, Mikhail Lermontov, Teffi, his uncle Boris Pasternak, and many others. Maya Slater is the author of the novel Mr. Darcy's Diary and a senior research fellow at Queen Mary University of London. She was a lecturer on French literature at London University for more than three decades.
