Less Than One

Joseph Brodsky (1940-1996) was a Russian-American poet and essayist born in Leningrad to a Jewish family, who began writing poetry at 18 and was recognized by Anna Akhmatova as his generation's finest lyric voice. Persecuted by Soviet authorities, exiled internally then forced to emigrate in 1972, he settled in the US, taught at universities, won the 1987 Nobel Prize in Literature, and served as US Poet Laureate in 1991. His works, written in Russian and English, include acclaimed poetry collections like A Part of Speech and To Urania, and the essay collection Less Than One.