Иосиф Бродский

Иосиф Александрович Бродский (1940–1996), also known as Joseph Brodsky, was a famous Russian-American poet, essayist, playwright and translator. He was born in Leningrad and left the Soviet Union (strongly advised to do so by authorities) in 1972, settling in the United States with the help of W. H. Auden and other supporters. Brodsky had been lecturing at the Mount Holyoke College, Cambridge, Yale University, Columbia University, and The University of Michigan. In 1987, he received the Nobel Prize in Literature for an "all-embracing authorship, imbued with clarity of thought and poetic intensity."