Born in 1944, Michael Pursglove was educated at Bradford Grammar School, King’s College, Cambridge and New College, Oxford. He subsequently taught Russian language and literature at the universities of Ulster, Reading, Exeter and Bath. He has published translations of many Russian prose texts, by authors ranging from Bunin and Grigorovich to Pilnyak, Platonov and Kazakov. In retirement he has published (with Alma Classics) translations of Turgenev’s Fathers and Children and Smoke and has completed a translation of Turgenev’s Virgin Soil, which will also be published by Alma Classics.