Peter Sekirin has a Ph. D. in Comparative Literature from the University of Toronto. Peter is the author of three literary biographies, and the translator of Chekhov's and Tolstoy's several major works, published for the first time in English.
Peter translated and edited the "Calendar of Wisdom", the last major work by Leo Tolstoy which the great novelist considered to be "the most important work"; Tolstoy kept it on his desk, and re-read it on a daily basis for the last 7 years of his life. Peter condensed and simplified an extensive philosophical "Calendar" of over 1200 pages into a short gift book of 365 pages, with one page of brief inspirational quotations for each day of the year. The lengthy 3 page long excerpts from the Bible and various German philosophers like Kant and Schopenhauer were replaced with Tolstoy's thoughts on topics such as vegetarianism, happiness, and simple way of life, taken from other editions of his Calendars. These rare works of wise thoughts selected by Tolstoy and published in Moscow in numerous volumes from 1901 to 1908 with several editions (heavily revised by Tolstoy) was the only source of Peter's compilation. "Calendar of Wisdom" has been translated into five languages: Chinese, Malaysian, Korean, German, and Spanish.
The other three literary biographies by Peter Sekirin on Chekhov, Dostoevsky and Tolstoy were based on the first-hand memories of the writers' friends and family members, and were collected from numerous archives and rare periodicals of the late 19th - early 20th century.
Peter has written numerous articles published in American Speech, Linguistics, and History of Literature. He worked for eight years as Research Associate at CREES Department at the University of Toronto. Peter lives in Aurora, Ontario with his wife and two children.
"Divine and Human" (Zondervan - Harper Collins, 2000)
"Wise Thoughts on God and Love" (Arcade - Hachette, 2007).
"Chekhov Stories of Crime and Suspense" (Pegasus Books, 2010)
"In My Own Words" (Hodder and Stoughton, UK, 2003)
"Calendar of Wisdom" (Scribner, 1997, 4th printing 2019)
Peter is the author of three literary biographies:
"Memories of Chekhov" (2011), a new biography of a great playwright,
"Americans in Conversation with Tolstoy" (2005) a collection of essays, and
"The Dostoevsky Archive" (1977, 2nd ed. 2013), about one the world's best novelists.
http://megapolis2001.wix.com/petersekirin
