First published 2020
Ivan Ilyich has built his life around his career as a high court judge. He follows social conventions, pursues advancement, and never considers his own mortality. Then illness strikes. Death makes itself known to him, shocking him into awareness of what he has never contemplated. Ivan Ilyich must confront the reality that his life will end. He faces this truth as a man who has lived without reflection, focused only on worldly success and social position. Tolstoy wrote this story after a nine-year silence following Anna Karenina, during a period of spiritual crisis in his own life. The novel examines how someone unprepared for mortality grapples with their final moment of reckoning. It explores whether spiritual salvation remains possible even for those who have lived unreflectively. The story offers both a terrifying look at death and hope for redemption.
Genres: fiction, literary-fiction, 20th-century, 19th-century
Vibes: dark, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: redemption, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Russia
Period: 19th-century
78 pages · Paperback · Independently published
Content warnings: death