Just yesterday I was sent a link by a good friend to the English translation of a short story called Ward No. 6 by Anton Chekhov.
I had never read anything by Chekhov before, but I was familiar with a number of Russian authors - Gogol, Dostoevsky, Bulgakov, Tolstoy - all of whom I enjoyed greatly.
Chekhov’s style reminds me somewhat of a more-psychological Balzac, certainly somewhat in the realist vein, or of Zola. Very cutting, gritty and in my opinion worthwhile.
