“My Life” by Anton Chekhov (1896)

This is Chekhov’s longest short story and one of the very few

he wrote in the first-person singular. It’s the autobiography of

a young man in provincial Russia struggling to live up to his

lofty ideals and being brought down by life’s random

contingencies. I actually adapted “My Life” for a play and

know it intimately. If you could only read a single Chekhov

story then this is the one: all his gifts and genius – the wry, dark

comedy of his voice, his unique angle on the human

condition, his refusal to judge – are contained in it. William

Boyd