April FitzLyon

April FitzLyon (born Cecily April Mead; 22 April 1920 – 17 September 1998) was an English translator, biographer, and historian.

Early life Born Cecily April Mead, at Langton Herring, Dorset, in 1920, she was educated as a small child in France and later at St Mary's, Calne, in the west of England. She studied the flute at the Guildhall School of Music, but did not go on to become a professional musician.

Marriage and children In 1941, aged 20, she married Kyril Zinovieff, a Russian émigré who took the surname FitzLyon and who worked at the Ministry of Defence. The couple had two sons, Sebastian, who became a businessman in France and later in Russia, and Julian, an information specialist. The family lived in Golders Green and later in Chiswick, moving in literary circles and having many Russian friends.

In researching her book on Viardot, FitzLyon found much on the singer's long relationship with Ivan Turgenev, and in 1983 she wrote the catalogue for the London Theatre Museum's centenary exhibition 'Turgenev and the Theatre'. Ladies Delight (1957), translation of Émile Zola's Au bonheur des dames Nobody: or, The Disgospel according to Maria Dementnaya (1975), novel translated from the Russian Maria Malibran: diva of the romantic age (1987), a biography A month in the country: an exhibition presented by the Theatre Museum, Victoria and Albert Museum, and arranged in conjunction with April FitzLyon (with Alexander Schouvaloff) catalogue of the Victoria and Albert Museum's Theatre Museum Ivan Turgenev centenary exhibition (1983)