Andrew D. Kaufman

Andrew D. Kaufman is a scholar, educator, and speaker who draws on Russian literature to illuminate enduring questions about love, moral choice, and what it means to be human. Trained at Stanford and for many years a professor at the University of Virginia, he is the author of The Gambler Wife: A True Story of Love, Risk, and the Woman Who Saved Dostoyevsky, a finalist for the PEN America Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography and the basis for the international feature film The Idiot(s), starring Aimee Lou Wood and Johnny Flynn.

His other books include Give ‘War and Peace’ a Chance: Tolstoyan Wisdom for Troubled Times and Understanding Tolstoy, and he is a coauthor of Russian for Dummies. He has appeared on Today, NPR, and PBS, and his work has been featured in The New York Times and The Washington Post. He has also served as a Russian literature expert for Oprah’s Book Club. Kaufman created Books Behind Bars, which introduces incarcerated youth and adults to Dostoyevsky and other authors.