BERNARD ADAMS was born in 1937 in the Black Country of the English West Midlands. Educated at King Edward’s School, Birmingham, he did his National Service in the regimental band of the Royal Scots Greys, then read Hungarian and Russian at Pembroke College, Cambridge. He was awarded an American PEN translation award in 2008, and in the same year won second prize in the John Dryden translation competition in the UK. In 2009 he received a translation award from the Füst Milán Foundation of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. He has published some 30 titles. In 2006 he moved to Hungary, and now lives at Zánka on the north side of Lake Balaton.