Nina Berberova was born in St Petersburg in 1901, and in 1921 was the first mourner to bring flowers to Blok on his death. In 1922 she left Russia with the poet Khodasevich, living first in Berlin and then in Paris. In 1950 she departed for New York, worked as a clerk and learned English at night school. She became a professor of Russian literature at Princeton. In 1985 her novellas about the lives of Russian emigrates in Paris were discovered by the director of the French publishing house Actes Sud, who set about publishing her entire oeuvre to great acclaim. Berberova died in Philadelphia in 1993. Her autobiography, The Italics are Mine (Vintage), Three Novels (Chatto and Windus) and The Accompanist (Flamingo) are currently available in English.