John Cournos
John Cournos, born Ivan Grigorievich Korshun , was an American writer and translator.
Biography
Cournos was born into a Russian Jewish family in Zhytomyr, Russian Empire. His first language was Yiddish; he studied Russian, German, and Hebrew with a tutor at home. When he was 10 years old his family emigrated to Philadelphia, where he learned English.Later in life he married Helen Kestner Satterthwaite, who was also an author and published under the pseudonyms Sybil Norton and John Hawk. His affair with Dorothy L. Sayers was fictionalised by Sayers in the detective book Strong Poison and by Cournos himself in The Devil Is an English Gentleman.
Literary career
In June 1912, Cournos moved to London, where he freelanced as an interviewer and critic for both UK and US publications and began his literary career as a poet and, later, novelist. He later emigrated to the US, where he spent the rest of his life.He was one of the Imagist poets, but is better known for his novels, short stories, essays, and criticism, as well as for his translations of Russian literature. He used the pseudonym John Courtney. He also wrote for The Philadelphia Record under the pseudonym "Gorky."
Cournos and Satterthwaite, under her pseudonym Sybil Norton, collaborated on several books, including Famous Modern American Novelists, Famous British Novelists, Best World Short Stories of 1947, and John Adams a biography.