Ellendea Proffer Teasley is the author of Mikhail Bulgakov: Life & Work and co-founder of Russian Literature TriQuarterly and Ardis Publishers. She received a MacArthur Fellowship in 1989.

"…Ellendea Proffer Teasley’s memoir of the poet, which became a sensation when it was first published in Russian three years ago, provides a penetrating and at times deeply moving account of both the myth and the man behind the work. She renders the Brodsky she knew not just as a great poet and deeply imperfect human being, but also as a political thinker who was uncompromising and unforgiving in his beliefs."