Chekhov's fiction offers a subtle yet powerful message: another life is possible. Something can always happen to our lives – a possibility that breaks the monotony of servitude and points to a different, more liberated existence. This is the way to approach all these brief tales of lost lives, nights filled with tears and joy, landscapes, or love, against the cynicism of those who believe that time is destined to replicate the same. In these glimmers, new forms of life arise – noble and sensible shapes that we occasionally perceive and may strive to unfold if we have the courage to do so.

Jacques Rancière, using Chekhov's stories as a lens, sees literature not as a source of knowledge but as a catalyst for reshaping the fabric of being. He illuminates the profound capability of literature: positioning us within the landscape of freedom, transparent about the distance it holds from the reality of servitude, yet unwavering in the standards it sets, inviting us to strive towards them.

"This essay has more insights than many critical studies ten times as long: as a discussion of Chekhov's 'open endings' it sheds light, with original perceptions, not just on the major works, but shorter gems overlooked by other critics."
Donald Rayfield, Queen Mary University of London

"This is an exquisite instalment in Rancière' political aesthetics and poetics in which his own writing reverberates with the same plangent yearning that he finds in Chekhov's short fiction. A must for any student of Chekhov or political aesthetics."
J.M. Bernstein, New School for Social Research

Jacques Rancière is a leading French philosopher and Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the University of Paris-St. Denis.