The majority of material in this article has been sourced from the Dictionary of National Biography. Michael Valentine Guybon Glenny (26 September 1927, London – 1 August 1990, Moscow) was a British lecturer in Russian studies and a translator of Russian literature into English. Life Glenny was born on 26 September 1927 in London, the only child of Arthur Glenny, an RAF officer, and Avice Noel (née Boyes), a South African ambulance driver in the Second World War. After preparatory school in Suffolk, he went to Radley College and Christ Church, Oxford. He obtained a second-class degree in Russian and French, graduating in 1951. During his stint with the military under National Service, he pursued postgraduate studies in Soviet studies at Oxford University. Career Military Following his undergraduate studies, Glenny joined the Royal Horse Guards for his national service. Ranked captain, he was posted to West Berlin in 1951. He considered a career in the military as well as in intelligence, but these did not come to fruition. He was discharged from the army in 1954 and came back to London. Glenny began his career in insurance. He then joined the Wedgwood company as a salesman and export manager. When the Wedgwood Room in the royal palace at Tsarskoye Selo was being restored in the 1960s, he was invited to the Soviet Union as an advisor. Journalism In 1964 Glenny joined The Observer in London to manage advertising and special projects. In 1966, the newspaper organised the Masada Exhibition at the Royal Festival Hall; he was the manager in charge of it. Academic Glenny was a lecturer in Russian language, literature and history at Birmingham University from 1972-75. Between 1975-77, he was a visiting lecturer at the Southern Illinois University where he collaborated with Herbert Marshall on the translation of Sergei Eisenstein's writings on drama theory. He worked at Bristol University from 1977–84. Literary Glenny began working as a part-time translator during his stint with Wedgwood. Via the publisher George Weidenfeld, his first published translations were from the German. However, translations from the Russian became the main focus of his life. Indeed, his speciality was the discovery and transmission of contemporary Russian literature that was unavailable to an English readership. His landmark translation of Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita in 1967 established his fame. He followed up with several other Bulgakov novels. Glenny made several trips to the Soviet