Isaac Emmanuilovich Babel was a Russian language journalist, playwright, literary translator, and short story writer. He is best known as the author of Red Cavalry, Story of My Dovecote, and Tales of Odessa, all of which are considered masterpieces of Russian literature. Babel has also been acclaimed as "the greatest prose writer of Russian Jewry." Loyal to, but not uncritical of, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Babel fell victim to Joseph Stalin's Great Purge as a result of his long-term affair with the wife of NKVD chief Nikolai Yezhov. This book contains two stories of Isaac Babel, written shortly before his death: "The Letter" and "The Cemetery at Kozin"