Robert Chandler studied Russian at Leeds University and spent the academic year 1973–74 as a British Council exchange scholar in Voronezh, a city 200 miles south of Moscow. His translations of Sappho and Apollinaire are published in the series ‘Everyman’s Poetry’, but he is best known for his translations from Russian. These include Alexander Pushkin's The Captain's Daughter, Vasily Grossman's Everything Flows, The Road, An Armenian Sketchbook and Life and Fate, many works by Andrey Platonov, and Hamid Ismailov’s novel The Railway, set in Central Asia. He has compiled three anthologies for Penguin Classics: of Russian short stories, Russian magic tales and—together with Boris Dralyuk and Irina Mashinski—of Russian poetry.  He is also the author of a "Brief Life" of Alexander Pushkin.  He runs a regular translation workshop at Pushkin House (London) and also works as a mentor for the British Centre for Literary Translation. His translations have won prizes in both the UK and the USA.

Cardinal Points 5, co-edited by Robert Chandler, is available from MadHat Press