The Russian novelist IVAN GONCHAROV (1812–1891) was born in Simbirsk, Russia. He served for thirty years as a minor government official and traveled widely. His short stories, critiques, essays, and memoirs were published posthumously in 1919. Oblomov was his most popular and critically acclaimed novel during his lifetime.
MARIAN SCHWARTZ has translated Russian literature for over thirty years. She has published over two dozen book-length translations, along with twenty issues of Russian Studies in Literature. She is the principal English translator of the works of Nina Berberova and is a past president of the American Literary Translators Association.