A Hero of Our Time

“Natasha Randall’s English, in her new translation, has exactly the right degree of loose velocity… . (Nabokov’s version, the best-known older translation, is a bit more demure than Randall’s, less savage.)” —James Wood, London Review of Books “[A] smart, spirited new translation.” —The Boston Globe “One of the most vivid and persuasive portraits of the male ego ever put down on paper.” —Neil LaBute, from the Foreword

Mikhail Lermontov (1814-1841) made several journeys to the Caucasus before entering St, Petersburg Guards’ school, where he began writing poetry and autobiographical dramas in prose. Influenced by Byron, he is renowned as Russia’s one true Romantic poet. Lermontov greatly influenced Dostoyevsky and Blok; while Tolstoy and Chekhov regarded his prose as a model.

Natasha Randall (translator/introducer) has published translations of Yevgeny Zamyatin’s We (shortlisted for the 2008 Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize) and Osip Mandelstam’s poetry as well as the work of contemporary writers Arkady Dragomoshchenko, Alexander Skidan, and Olga Zondberg. A frequent contributor to the Los Angeles Times, she lives in London.

Neil LaBute (foreword) is a film director, screenwriter and playwright. He is best known for his play and film In the Company of Men and his films Possession, The Shape of Things, and The Wicker Man.