A wide-ranging guide to 273 of the main writers of Russian literature and to 293 of their best known works from the Kievan period to the post-communist writing of the Russian Federation, with a bias towards the 19th and 20th centuries and, to some extent, contemporary writers. The writer entries, alphabetically arranged in a two-column format, are approximately 1000 words long and consist of a biographical sketch plus a list of primary works in chronological order and grouped by genre where applicable, including translations into English, and a selected list of bibliographies and critical studies on the author. Some of the entries are accompanied by essays on individual works of literature. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR