Yuri Felsen, pseudonym of Nikolai Freudenstein, was born in St Petersburg in 1894. He emigrated and settled in Paris in 1923 where he became one of the leading writers of his generation. Known by his contemporaries as 'the Russian Proust', Felsen died in the gas chambers at Auschwitz, his life and legacy destroyed by the Nazis.

Bryan Karetnyk is a British writer and translator. His recent translations include major works by Gaito Gazdanov, Irina Odoevtseva and Boris Poplavsky. He is also the editor of the landmark Penguin Classics anthology Russian Émigré Short Stories from Bunin to Yanovsky.