Ilya Ilf and Yevgeny Petrov

Ilya Ilf and Yevgeny Petrov both came from Odessa. Ilf, born Fainzilberg in 1897, was a draughtsman, a telephone exchange employee and an accountant; Petrov, born Kataev, the younger brother of the writer Valentin Kataev, spent three years as a criminal police inspector. Both wrote for the newspaper Goudok in the mid-1920s and from then on worked only together. They crossed the United States in 1935. Ilf died in Moscow on 13 April 1937; Petrov was killed on 2 July 1942 in a plane crash, on his return from Sevastopol.

In the catalogue 1

• NovelThe Twelve ChairsДвенадцать стульевIlya Ilf and Yevgeny Petrov · 1928LiteraturePublic domain