Don't Die Before You're Dead

Yevgeny Yevtushenko was born Yevgeny Aleksandrovich Gangnus on July 18, 1933, in Zima Junction, a remote lumber station on the trans-Siberian Railway in the Irkutsk region of Siberia. He became a poet whose work inspired a generation of young Russians in their fight against Stalinism during the Cold War. His poems included Zima Junction, My Beloved Will Come, Stalin's Heirs, Babi Yar, and Russian Tanks in Prague. He also wrote two novels including Don't Die Before You're Dead. He died on April 1, 2017 at the age of 83. Antonina W. Bouis is the prize-winning translator of more than fifty books, including fiction, nonfiction, and memoirs by such figures as Andrei Sakharov, Elena Bonner, and Dmitri Shostakovich.