The Gentleman from San Francisco

Ivan Bunin received the 1933 Nobel Prize in Literature "for the strict artistry with which he has carried on the classical Russian traditions in prose writing.” Aristocrat to the core, Bunin somehow remained connected to the land and people and keenly felt their pulse of life. His acute observations resulted in the accurate and unforgettable characters who populated his writing.

His love for punctuation and punctilious choice of words is legendary.

Reading Bunin's stories is one of the best ways to understand the mysterious Russian soul and begin to understand one of Russia’s greatest periods of literature.

"The Gentleman from San Francisco" is a short story by Ivan Bunin, written in 1915 and published the same year in Moscow, in the 5th volume of Slovo (Word) anthology. Translated into English by D. H. Lawrence (with Samuil Koteliansky), the story is one of Bunin's best known and regarded as classic. 

A 58-year-old American from San Francisco, having acquired a great fortune, sets off with his wife and daughter on a world tour. After a luxurious cruise, they arrive in Naples, where he is dismayed by the unusually bad winter weather and finds that the city does not meet his expectations.