Varlam Tikhonovich Shalamov was born in Vologda in 1907 and died in Moscow in 1982. 'The Duck' is part of the Kolyma Tales, an epick cycle of stories based on his experiences in Kolyma, the vast labour-camp empire in North-East Siberia where Shalamov was imprisoned between 1937 and 1956.

Varlam Tikhonovich Shalamov's work featured in Stand Magazine comprises one article.