Known by many as “Russia’s lost moral conscience” and hailed by the New York Times as “the bravest of journalists,” ANNA POLITKOVSKAYA (born 1958 in New York City) was a special correspondent for the Russian newspaper Novaya gazeta. She received honors from many Russian and international groups, including Amnesty International and the Index on Censorship. In 2000 she received Russia’s prestigious Golden Pen Award for her coverage of the war in Chechnya, and in 2005 she was awarded the Civil Courage Prize. She is the author of A Dirty War; A Small Corner of Hell; Putin’s Russia; and A Russian Diary. She was murdered in Moscow on October 7, 2006.

ARCH TAIT translates from the Russian. His translation of Ludmila Ulitskaya’s Sonechka: A Novella and Stories was shortlisted for the Rossica Translation Prize in 2007.