Mikhail Bakhtin

This is the author. His writing has been translated for the edition used to write this summary. As such, only those who read Russian and English will be able to judge the precision with which the translator has performed. The author has had a growing reputation as a great intellectual of 20th century Russia. This work is his great introduction for "Westerners." He conducts a literary research which is simultaneously a historical survey and an analysis of a cultural form during this book.

He is obviously Russian. The author lived his life without fame. He is apparently recognized more posthumously than during his lifetime (1895-1975). There are twinges of regret since scholars and others have since concluded that he was absolutely brilliant and undertaking incredibly valuable work but had ended up somehow going quietly unnoticed by important figures who might have helped him achieve notoriety. As such...