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“... Tsvetaeva and Akhmatova. Certainly the individual tones come across, even in English, in David McDuff’s very capable and accurate-seeming translation, although in the absence of the Russian text it is not possible to ‘give way’ to them as one does to authentic sound in a poem. But the atmosphere of fresh reality – the flavour of the ...”

“... Isaac Babel was a middle-class Jew from Odessa who rode to war with a Cossack regiment. This extraordinary conjunction occurred during the Russo-Polish war of 1920. It is not news, because the single work that made Babel a famous writer – the short story collection Red Cavalry – is based on his experiences that summer, when he turned 26, at the First Cavalry Army HQ in a Volhynian village ...”

“... Volokhonsky’s 1990 translation – the translation of the notes is by Edward Wasiolek. In David McDuff’s 1993 version we read: ‘The greater the stupidity, the greater the clarity. Stupidity is brief and guileless, while wit equivocates and hides. Wit is a scoundrel, while stupidity is honest and sincere.’ And again, in Constance Garnett’s ...”