Юность) is an autobiographical novel by Nobel Prize-winning Russian author Ivan Bunin seen by many as his most important work written in emigration.

Some ideologically charged fragments went out too, like the one in Chapter 9 of Book IV where Arseniev spoke of narodniks's circle and his own views on one's social responsibilities.

[2] According to Vera Muromtseva-Bunina, "Ivan Alekseyevich wanted desperately to include the [final part] into the novel but the latter has been published already and so he released it as a separate edition as soon as the chance presented itself.

"[4] In 1952 the New-York-based Chekhov Publishers released the first edition of the novel as a whole, entitled The Life of Arseniev.

"[6] On the envelope of the manuscript's first version Bunin wrote: "Biographical notes and some fiction - for the novel in three parts.

"[3] The idea of "resurrecting some kind of faraway image of youth, and may be an imaginary younger brother who might have left this world many years ago, taking his infinitely distant times away with him..." came to Bunin much earlier.

In 1929, publishing the new version of "At the Outset" (1906) novella, Bunin re-titled it as "The Mirror", adding a sub-title: "The Life of Arseniev's earlier sketch".

[7] Another novella, "Eight Years" (known variously as "In Corn Fields", "Distant Things" and "The Dream of Oblomov the Grandson") has been acknowledged as another fragment of Life of Arseniev's earlier version.

[8] The Life of Arseniev, as both Bunin and Muromtseva-Bunina were keen to stress, was not an autobiography, but a work of fiction, interspersed with autobiographical details, not necessarily chronologically congruous.