David McDuff

I was born in 1945, and attended the University of Edinburgh, where I studied Russian with German. After living for some time in the Soviet Union, Denmark, Iceland, and the United States, I eventually settled in the United Kingdom, where I worked for several years as a co-editor and reviewer on the literary magazine Stand. I then moved to London, where I began my career as a literary translator. I'm really a translator more than an author, though I like providing introductions to books of translation - it seems to me that a translator has a unique opportunity to read and understand works of literature from the inside, and it's that process that I try to share with the readers of my introductory essays. The list of my translations is rather diverse - but roughly speaking it spans two main areas: classic prose fiction (mostly Russian) and twentieth century poetry (mostly Nordic and Russian). II live in Kent, England,