The difference between genius and madness

Where do we draw the line between genius and madness? This is the subject of Anton Chekhov's The Black Monk - the story of a young man called Andrei Kovrin who suffers from an undisclosed mental illness which causes him to believe he is being visited by a monk dressed in black.

This is a fascinating, unusual story which I found easy to read but difficult to fully understand. Chekhov's poetic writing creates an eerie, disturbing atmosphere appropriate to Kovrin's descent into mental illness.

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