Elena Chizhova was born in 1957 in Leningrad, the city which provides the setting for her award-winning The Time of Women, a novel about the secret culture of resistance and remembrance amongst women of Russia. Chizhova, a former economist, teacher and entrepreneur, turned to writing in 1996 after being rescued from a burning cruise ship. Her beautiful and sensitive prose has already been recognized in her homeland: she is the winner of the Northern Palm and the Literary Premier of 'Zvezda' journal in 2001, as well as of the Russian Booker Prize in 2009. Chizhova's prose shuns trickery in favour of emotional honesty in order to probe the weeping sores of Russian history that contemporary culture would sooner forget. Chizhova is the director of the local PEN centre in St. Petersburg. Carol Ermakova, MA, studied Russian and German Language and Literature at St. Andrews University, Scotland, graduating with First Class Honours. She went on to gain an MA in Contemporary Russian Studies at SSEES, University of London, and an MA in Translation and Interpreting from Bath University. Ermakova first visited Russia as a student in the turbulent Perestroika years, later returning to live and work in Moscow as well as St. Petersburg. Ermakova has travelled widely throughout the former Soviet Union, including several visits to Central Asia, most notably Tashkent, Bukhara and Samarkand. She now lives in the North Pennines, UK, where she works as a free-lance translator specialising in contemporary Russian literature. Her published translations include The Underground by Hamid Ismailov, and Zinnober's Poppets by Russian Booker prize-winner Elena Chizhova as well as the script for award-winning documentary film Ulugh Beg. The Man Who Unlocked The Universe.