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W.

W. Empire pod UK.com. Hello and me William Empire with me Anita Arnan and me William

Drumpel. We have done a simultaneous fan moment haven't we because both you and I

have slightly fallen in love with both subject matter and indeed guest superstar this week, haven't we?

Absolutely. I think both of us had, I never, you went to Russia and your youth, which I never did,

but I sat in places like Rome and my first trip around India with

war and peace in those buses. Yes I know and also you know the subject matter

particularly this week has you're quite right throwing me back into just

being sort of a slightly dippy student but the joy of reading about toll story because honestly I didn't know as much and I didn't realize how much I'd be drawn into him and his life and also I sort of had many of the same feelings I felt when we were doing the Gandhi episode,

which is that there is a whole hinterland here, which you need to kind of understand,

to understand the thinking and the transformation of a great life. And and as we will find of course it links very closely

bags of hush now anyway we we should introduce our superstar who we were completely

gaga over this week. Rosamond Bartlett is, well, the author of the great book that we're basing the

podcast on today,

Tolstoy a Russian life, but she's not just that, she's a translator, a translator of great esteem.

She has done the latest and dare I say greatest translation of Anna Kerena for Oxford World Classics

edition and she is very welcome on Empire. Hello.

Hello very nice to be here. We were very very lucky to have Rosamieutte to our Jaipur Literature Festival when her

Tolstoy biography first came out and she gave a barnstorming performance and I remember

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