Chekhov on Writing

This book provides writing advice straight from one of the greatest writers of all time. Russian writer Maxim Gorky said that no one has ever understood "the tragedy of life's trivialities" as clearly as Anton Chekhov. Chekhov's unique ability to speak volumes with a single, impeccably chosen word, to mesh comedy and pathos, to capture life's basic sadness at the same time as entertaining his reader, is a reason so many want to write like him. Chekhov's goal in writing was to be a simple reporter whose goal was not to preach but to be a "mere chronicler, giving the unconditional and honest truth." This book brings together two strands of Chekhov's writing. The first is real-life reportage based on his visit to the Island of Sakhalin, to which Russian prisoners went when sentenced to hard labour, evoking the conversations, sensations, sights, smells and sounds and made his readers feel that they had "taken a tour of hell." The second, more 'literary' strand is based on direct quotations from letters to such literary contemporaries as Nabokov, Tolstoy, his brother Alexander and his editor.
It reveals what made Anton Chekhov the universally acknowledged great writer that he is and shows how his words of wisdom are as contemporary and apposite today as they were when he died over a century ago.