Nikolai Gogol (1809–1852) was a Russian writer and dramatist. He was born in the Ukraine in 1809 and trained as a painter before finding success as a writer. He soon became famous for his plays and short fiction, notably “The Diary of a Madman” (1834), “The Nose” (1836), and “The Overcoat” (1842). His novel, Dead Souls, was published in 1842.
Constance Garnett was an English translator of nineteenth-century Russian literature and one of the first English translators of Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, and Chekhov.
Natasha Randall is a translator, writer, and scholar living in London. Her work has appeared in The Times Literary Supplement and The New York Times, among other publications, and she has translated the literary works of Dostoevsky and Lermontov.