Tolstoy would be absolutely outraged: Olga Kenton in conversation with Nicolas Pasternak Slater and Maya Slater on translating “Anna Karenina”

Nicolas and Maya have recently completed their translation of one of Tolstoy’s best-known and most widely read novels, Anna Karenina (scheduled to be published in 2026 by the Folio Society). Nicolas, a nephew of Nobel prizewinner Boris Pasternak, was a doctor by profession and after retirement has become a translator by choice. He has translated a plethora of Russian authors, his notable translations including Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak, Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky, Lieutenant Kizhe by Yuri Tynyanov, and A Hero of Our Time by Mikhail Lermontov. Maya, a Senior Research Fellow at Queen Mary University of London, is the author of books on Proust and La Fontaine, a novel, The Private Diary of Mr Darcy, and the translator of The Misanthrope, Tartuffe and Other Plays by Molière. Nicolas and Maya have collaborated on numerous translation projects.

I visited the Pasternak-Slaters at their residence in London to discuss the novel, obstacles that arose during the translation process, and the significance of engaging with Russian literature in the twenty-first century.