TATYANA TOLSTAYA was born in Leningrad in 1951 to an aristocratic family that includes the writers Leo and Alexei Tolstoy. After completing a degree in classics at Leningrad State University, Tolstaya worked for several years at a Moscow publishing house. In the mid-1980s, she began publishing short stories in literary magazines. Her first story collection established her as one of the foremost writers of the Gorbachev era. She spent much of the late Eighties and Nineties living in the United States and teaching at several universities. Known for her acerbic essays on contemporary Russian life, Tolstaya has also been the co-host of the Russian cultural interview television program School for Scandal. Both her novel, The Slynx, and her collection of stories, White Walls, are published by NYRB Classics.

ANTONINA W. BOUIS translates works of fiction and nonfiction from the Russian, among her most recent translations are Edvard Radzinsky’s Alexander II: The Last Great Tsar and Marina Goldovskaya’s Woman with a Movie Camera.

JAMEY GAMBRELL is a writer on Russian art and culture. Her translations include Marina Tsvetaeva’s Earthly Signs: Moscow Diaries, 1917–1922, a volume of Aleksandr Rodchenko’s writings, Experiments for the Future, and Tatyana Tolstaya’s The Slynx. Her translation of Vladimir Sorokin’s Ice has recently been published by NYRB Classics.