Short Fiction

Short Fiction by Vsevolod Garshin is a fiction, shorts first published in 1879-87. Vsevolod Garshin uses the form to consider human motives, relationships, conflict, and the consequences of choice, keeping the emphasis on how ideas become choices, conflicts, and consequences. This English edition is presented in a translation by Rowland Smith, bringing the work’s original voice into a different linguistic setting. The reading experience is shaped by a character-centered narrative style that rewards attention to voice, structure, and perspective. At roughly 114,559 words with a fairly easy reading profile, it offers a reading commitment that is easy to judge before beginning while still leaving room for close attention. Its continuing value lies in its capacity to make unfamiliar lives and difficult choices emotionally legible. Readers drawn to fiction, shorts and human motives will find a work that combines a distinct period voice with questions that remain recognizable today. Short Fiction therefore works both as an encounter with Vsevolod Garshin’s individual voice and as an example of the wider literary tradition surrounding fiction, shorts.