David Shrayer-Petrov, a well-known contemporary Russian-American writer and medical scientist, was born in Leningrad in 1936 and immigrated to the United States in 1987. He has published twenty-five books in his native Russian, most recently the novel The Story of My Beloved. Shrayer-Petrov's books of fiction in English include Jonah and Sarah: Jewish Stories of Russia and America and Autumn in Yalta: A Novel and Three Stories.

Maxim D. Shrayer, the author's son and translator, is a professor at Boston College and a 2012 Guggenheim Fellow. His books include An Anthology of Jewish-Russian Literature and Leaving Russia: A Jewish Story.