Vasily Semyonovich Grossman (1905-1964) was born in Berdichev, a Ukrainian town that was home to one of Europe's largest Jewish communities. During World War II, Grossman worked as a reporter for the army newspaper Red Star, covering nearly all of the most important battles from the defense of Moscow to the fall of Berlin. NYRB Classics publishes Grossman's Stalingrad, Life and Fate, The Road, Everything Flows, and An Armenian Sketchbook.

Robert Chandler's translations from Russian include works by Alexander Pushkin, Teffi, and Andrey Platonov. He has also written a short biography of Pushkin and has edited three anthologies of Russian literature for Penguin Classics. He runs a monthly translation workshop at Pushkin House in London.

Elizabeth Chandler is a co-translator, with her husband, of Pushkin's The Captain's Daughter and of several several works by Vasily Grossman and Andrey Platonov.

Julia Volohova is an independent scholar. She has been researching the life and work of Vasily Grossman since 2014 and she works as an editor for the Laboratory of Unnecessary Things at the Independent University of Moscow.