Books by Anton Chekhov

“Chekhov wrote ‘Gusev’ when he was himself travelling home by sea from Siberia in 1890. He had just completed an epic overland journey to study the notorious penal colony on the island of Sakhalin, in the days before there was a train. ‘Gusev’ was the only piece of fiction which came out of this voyage…Gusev is the name of the story’s central character. He is a peasant conscript returning from a brutal period of service in the Far East, and is already dying of tuberculosis when put on board the ship…I’m not surprised that this is the story which Shostakovich wanted his wife to read to him on the night that he died. He said it was the most musical prose in all of Russian literature, and I’m inclined to agree.” Read more...

The Best Russian Short Stories

Rosamund Bartlett, Translator

“It was a great moment in Russian history. So, as a kind of period piece that captures Russia in the late 19th, early 20th century, it’s the most poignant text I’ve ever read…You learn much more about Russia before the revolution by reading The Cherry Orchard than you will by studying the tsar and his land reforms or other decisions made in St Petersburg by the leadership.” Read more...

Peter Frankopan on History

Peter Frankopan, Historian

“His stories are mould breaking in the sense that nobody wrote short stories like Chekhov and now everybody writes short stories like Chekhov. We’re all Chekhovian now. He’s a very modern spirit who happened to write his great work at the end of the 19th century. But it’s completely 21st century thinking, it seems to me.” Read more...

William Boyd on Writers Who Inspired Him

William Boyd, Novelist

“I’m a big fan of Chekhov and his short stories. But to me this book – which has been called so many things: journalism, travel-writing et cetera… – is about Chekhov going out into the world and looking at it…You can feel Chekhov on every page, watching, listening, noting, feeling for the people he meets.” Read more...

The Best ‘Anti-Memoirs’

Yiyun Li, Memoirist

“This was a young writer’s attempt to write a financially successful thriller. The protagonist (and the narrator) is a court official investigating a murder of a young woman. It is a crime of passion, that much is evident, but there are several suspects, one of them is arrested and convicted. In the end, it turns out that the murder was committed by the investigator himself, so the novel might have been Agatha Christie’s inspiration for The Murder of Roger Akroyd. Dame Agatha did the job much better of course. As a mystery author, Chekhov is hopeless: too slow, easily distracted, and more interested in the mystery of soul.” Read more...

Five Mysteries Set in Russia

Boris Akunin, Thriller and Crime Writer

“Well, like much of Chekhov, it’s powerful in part because, although there is a moral undertone, no moral arguments are made, he’s not a moraliser. It’s about this guy who gets drawn into a duel so ridiculous that it’s impossible, even if you’ve just read the story, to remember exactly what it was they were duelling about. It’s often true of duels that people are prickly and they think their honour is being abused and they end up fighting. What happens is this man who is leading a rather meaningless life, fights a duel and doesn’t get killed and that turns him around and he pulls himself together. It’s just so marvellous, the description of these professional-class Russians, far, far away from Moscow in the provinces, and their preoccupation with status and all that, and these two guys in a completely pointless duel. It’s not just Chekhov creating an interesting narrative moment; it really was so common with these duels that it was extremely difficult to say in a short paragraph exactly what they were about.” Read more...

The best books on Honour

Kwame Anthony Appiah, Philosopher