伊萨克·巴别尔（1894-1940），20世纪俄罗斯文学奇才，20年代至30年代初苏联最引人注目的作家之一。出色的描写技巧、别具一格的构思，使他的作品备受博尔赫斯、海明威等大家的推崇。仅以两个短篇小说集《红色骑兵军》和《奥德萨的故事》，他便已跻身叙事大师之列。其中《红色骑兵军》是哥萨克骑兵将士的列传，因"描写上的自然主义倾向"而曾被列为禁书。1937年巴别尔蒙冤入狱，1940年被秘密枪决，一颗耀眼的明星就此陨落。1957年《红色骑兵军》重在苏联出版，迅速被译成二十多种文字，震惊欧美。巴别尔因此被称为是继卡夫卡之后给世人以巨大震撼与启迪的又一位伟大的犹太作家。

One of the great masterpieces of Russian literature, the "Red Cavalry" cycle retains today the shocking freshness that made Babel's reputation when the stories were first published in the 1920s. Using his own experiences as a journalist and propagandist with the Red Army during the war against Poland, Babel brings to life an astonishing cast of characters from the exuberant, violent era of early Soviet history: commissars and colonels, Cossacks and peasants, and among them the bespectacled, Jewish writer/intellectual, observing it all and trying to establish his role in the new Russia. Drawn from the acclaimed, award-winning "Complete Works of Isaac Babel," this volume includes all of the "Red Cavalry" cycle; Babel's 1920 diary, from which the material for the fiction was drawn; and his preliminary sketches for the stories-the whole constituting a fascinating picture of a great writer turning life into art.