Richard Coombes has been a classics scholar, a musician, and an international tax specialist, and is now a literary translator.

Richard’s published translations to date have been from Russian. He expects to translate increasingly from Ukrainian in 2025 and beyond.

Richard’s published translations include short stories and poetry in literary journals; poetry in the bilingual World War II poetry collection ‘Frontovaya Lira’; and poetry in the bilingual anti-war anthologies ‘Disbelief’ and ‘Dislocation’.

Richard’s translations of Elena Dolgopyat’s short story collection ‘Someone Else’s Life’ and ‘The Food Block’ (a novel by Alexei Ivanov) are now available worldwide. Soon to be published: Pavel Basinsky’s documentary-thriller ‘Liza’s Waterfall’.