Welcome –
to this website about my translation work – translation into modern English primarily from Russian, but also from Latin. My particular interest is in the Russian writer Alexander Pushkin. I am eager to generate an awareness and enjoyment of Pushkin among English readers that matches both the brilliance of his writing and his popularity in Russia.
My translations
from Russian (Pushkin)
Eugene Onégin
An edition, in both Russian and accessible English, of Pushkin’s most famous work, his ‘novel-in-verse’ Eugene Onégin, which he wrote between the ages of 24 and 32. It is the major work of his maturity and widely regarded as his masterpiece….
Ruslán and Lyudmíla
An edition in both Russian and accessible English, of one of Pushkin’s lightest and most amusing works, largely written by Pushkin in his late teens. Though a fairy-story, he wrote it not for children, but to entertain youngsters of his own age and the literary avant-garde of St Petersburg….
Complete lyrics and shorter poems – four volumes
These unique volumes attempt for the first time to present to readers in the English-speaking world a complete collection, in both Russian and English, of Pushkin’s output of almost 800 shorter verses spanning his life from childhood to death at the age of 37….
Love Poems
Here are English translations of over a hundred of Pushkin’s love poems, ranging across the spectrum of love’s orientations and expressions from the imaginatively fictional to the starkly real, from playful society bons mots to heartfelt expressions of deepest feeling….
Boris Godunov and the Little Tragedies
Borís Godunóv is Pushkin’s only full-length drama, a historical play in the manner of Shakespeare. The four Little Tragedies are short, one-act plays with a western European setting and atmosphere, focusing on a leading character’s driving obsession with money, professional status, sex or risk-taking….
Belkin’s Stories and A History of Goryúkhino Village
Belkin’s Stories consists of a set of five short stories prefaced by a tongue-in-cheek foreword by the equally fictional ‘editor’, Belkin. The History of Goryukúkhino Village is a (sadly unfinished) parody of contemporary historical writing and a guarded critique of social conditions in rural Russia….
from Latin
Utopia, or The Island of Nowhere, by Thomas More
Utopia first appeared in print in 1516, half a millennium ago. Since then it has fascinated readers by its originality and by the acuity and passion of its commentary on political, social and moral issues….
Praise of Folly and Pope Julius barred from Heaven
Erasmus wrote Praise of Folly in 1509 as a joke, satirising society from ordinary folk to academia, church and state. Pope Julius barred from Heaven (1513) is satirical dialogue at the gates of heaven between St Peter and the worldly Pope Julius II, who had just died….
Work in progress
My current project is to complete Alma Classics’ portfolio of Pushkin’s poetry with a volume of his longer poems, again in Russian and English, including A Prisoner in the Caucasus, The Fountain of Bakhchisaráy, Gypsies, Count Nulin, Poltáva, A Little House in Kolómna, Angelo and The Bronze Horseman, together with his skazki (folk tales). The aim is to publish this in 2025.
