About the Authors
Anton Chekhov (1860–1904), the author of hundreds of short stories and several plays, is regarded by many as both the greatest Russian storyteller and the father of modern drama. He described the Russian life of his time using a deceptively simple technique devoid of obtrusive literary devices, thereby becoming the prominent representative of the late nineteenth-century Russian realist school. His early stream-of-consciousness style strongly influenced the literary world, including writers such as James Joyce.
Nikolai Gogol (1809–1852) was a preeminent Ukrainian-born author. He is particularly famous for those stories which veer in the direction of surrealism and the grotesque.