MIKHAIL BULGAKOV was born in Kiev on May 15th 1891. He graduated as a doctor but gave up the practice of medicine in 1920 to devote himself to literature. He went on to write some of the greatest novels in twentieth century Russian literature, including The White Guard, Heart of a Dog, and his masterpiece, The Master and Margarita. He died in Moscow of kidney disease in 1940.

MICHAEL GLENNY (1927-1990) was one of the world's leading translators of Russian literature, translating the works of Gogol and Dostoevsky. But he was also famous for bringing the works of then-lesser-known dissident writers to the fore, including Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and Georgi Vladimov. He was the first person to translate Mikhail Bulgakov into English.