On 25 September 1830, after eight long years and at the age of 31, Pushkin completed a masterpiece; his novel in verse, Evgenii Onegin.

Widely considered the founder of modern Russian literature and Russia's greatest poet, Pushkin's life was short but extraordinary. The great grandson of an African slave, his work ranged from the sublime to the scatological. He died an agonising and violent death in 1837.

What happened after Evgenii Onegin was completed? Pushkin was already engaged to a beautiful eighteen-year old woman. True, general recognition of the novel as a masterpiece would take a little longer and he was in two minds about marrying anyone. But how did he feel, and why were the next seven years to be his last?

Using only his poems and letters, chronologically presented, Mary Hobson allows Pushkin to answer these questions himself. After Onegin, is a diary of a state of mind.

Mary Hobson was awarded the Pushkin gold medal for translation by the Russian Association of Creative Unions in 1999, the bicentenary of Pushkin's birth.