A historical relationship of Ivan Turgenev is uncovered.
The ambiguous relationship between Ivan Turgenev and the ingénue starring in the revival of one of his early plays is revealed through the fragments of sources left to a researcher. It is a love predicated on renunciation, in which the appeal of a perpetual 'if-only' is explored.
Part of the Storycuts series, this short story was previously published in the collection The Lemon Table.
Julian Barnes is the author of thirteen novels, including The Sense of an Ending, which won the 2011 Man Booker Prize for Fiction, and Sunday Times bestsellers The Noise of Time and The Only Story. He has also written three books of short stories, four collections of essays and three books of non-fiction, including the Sunday Times number one bestseller Levels of Life and The Man in the Red Coat, which was shortlisted for the 2019 Duff Cooper Prize. In 2017 he was awarded the Légion d'honneur.
