'Do you ever wonder what would happen if we could live our lives all over again but be fully conscious of it the second time? I bet we'd try to do everything differently, or at least would know to create a different world for ourselves.' In a room in a house in a provincial town, three sisters wait for their lives to begin. Olga, the eldest. Masha, the middle child. Irina, the youngest. The clock strikes. A candle is lit. The clock stops. Something catches fire. The clock strikes. They wake up. Following her critically acclaimed production of Summer and Smoke, Almeida Associate...

A young woman struggles to assert herself within a regrettable marriage. A boy learns about life on an epic summer's journey to a new school. A doctor attempts to befriend his most interesting patient. A young man tries to figure out the best way to live. This riverrun edition presents a selection of Chekhov's longer stories - novellas, effectively - in Constance Garnett's timeless translations. These four stories, The Wife, The Steppe, Ward No. 6 and My Life, tell of characters attempting to create meaning through work, connection with others and art; they deal with...

This unique collection offers a perfect introduction to one of Russia's - and the world's - greatest writers.

A secret terrorist group infiltrates the household of a government official's son, with a view to spying on the father and, ultimately, assassinating him. But the young man entrusted with the task - an ailing, world-weary "nobody" - seized with the purposelessness of life and a sense of his own impending death, gradually becomes disillusioned with his mission, and decides to embark on a new path which will lead him to tragedy. Combining psychological detail with a strong sense of place and time, The Story of a Nobody bears all the hallmarks of Chekhov's genius, and...