One Story

For the first time in Russian — the latest (published in Britain in February 2018) novel by the renowned Julian Barnes, winner of the Booker Prize, Commander of the French Order of Arts and Letters, one of the brightest and most original prose writers of contemporary Britain. «One Story» is «a penetrating analysis, executed with jeweler's touches, of what goes on in the mind and soul of a person in love» (The Times); it is «a deeper and more effective exploration of a theme already touched upon by Barnes in “The Sense of an Ending” — a novel for which he finally won the Booker Prize» (The Observer). «Most of us have only one story ready at hand,— writes Barnes. — Countless events occur, and you can weave an unlimited number of stories about them. But only one story is essential; ultimately, it is the only one worth telling». So, meet Paul; he is nineteen. At a tennis club in a quiet London suburb, he meets Mrs. Susan McLeod; she is forty-eight. This is where their one and only story begins — for «those in love tend to believe that their story doesn’t fit into any frames or categories»…