Born in 1959, Mikhail Shevelev graduated from Moscow Institute of Foreign Languages in 1981. A translator, interpreter, and former deputy editor for The Moscow News, he currently works as a freelance journalist covering political and social issues in Russia for Radio Liberty. After 2014 he has not collaborated with Russian state and private media. He is the author of two novels and several collections of short stories, which have been translated into several languages. In 2021, he was awarded the Isaac Babel Prize (Ukraine).