Twenty-six and One, and Other Stories

Twenty-six bakery workers spend their days making biscuits in a damp cellar where barred windows keep out sunlight. Their exhausting routine opens this collection of three Russian stories by Maksim Gorky, which also includes Tchelkache and Malva. An introductory essay by Ivan Strannik connects the author's writing with his varied work and years among people living at the edges of settled society. The stories turn toward laborers, wanderers and peasants whose choices are shaped by hardship.

In Tchelkache, two men row across a dark sea with valuable silk aboard and talk about what money could change back in the village. Memories of land, family and independence enter their conversation alongside dreams of a better livelihood. Detailed descriptions of the cellar and the moving water give these brief scenes a strong physical setting. Readers interested in Russian social life will find fiction concerned with work, poverty and the uncertain appeal of freedom.