Alexei Maximovich Peshkov, known as Maxim Gorky, was born in 1868 in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia. A prolific Russian and Soviet writer, a founder of the Socialist realism literary method, and a political activist, Gorky achieved worldwide fame with his realistic depictions of the poor and oppressed. He died under suspicious circumstances in 1936.

Stephen Mulrine was born in Glasgow in 1937. Educated at Glasgow University, Edinburgh, and Strathclyde Universities. MA (Hons) 1st Class, English Language & Literature. Post-grad Diploma in Russian Language. Senior Lecturer, Historical & Critical Studies, Glasgow School of Art. Fellow of the Royal Scottish Academy of Music & Drama. Following a prolific second career writing original plays for radio and television, Stephen began translating plays, mainly from Russian, in the late 1980s. Published and produced work ranges from the great 19th-century classics — Pushkin, Gogol, Turgenev, Chekhov — to contemporary drama by Gelman and Petrushevskaya. His adaptation of Yerofeev's cult 1960s novel, MOSCOW STATIONS, for whose performance in which Tom Courtenay won the London Evening Standard's Best Actor award, was staged in Edinburgh, London, and New York, and has been re-translated into several European languages. Now retired from academic life, Stephen's translations, published mainly by Nick Hern Books and Oberon Books, include versions of Ibsen, Molière, Pirandello, Strindberg, Beaumarchais, and others. English Touring Theatre has premiered his SEAGULL and CHERRY ORCHARD by Chekhov and also Ibsen's GHOSTS and JOHN GABRIEL BORKMANN. His translation of Chekhov's UNCLE VANYA for the same company was chosen by Sir Peter Hall to open the new Rose Theatre at Kingston on Thames, and his most recent work includes Ibsen's A DOLL'S HOUSE and Chekhov's SWANSONG, also for Sir Peter Hall, at the Theatre Royal, Bath.