Fyodor Dostoevsky

1821–1881 · Russian (Moscow/St. Petersburg) · Imperial Russia

Known for: Master of the psychological novel—Crime and Punishment, The Brothers Karamazov, The Idiot

Fyodor Dostoevsky was sentenced to death for political activities, endured a mock execution (the reprieve came at the last second), and spent four years in a Siberian prison camp. The experience transformed him from a liberal into a conservative Christian mystic. He was an epileptic, a compulsive gambler who lost everything repeatedly, and a man of violent emotional extremes.

His novels plunge into the darkest corners of the human psyche—murder, madness, faith, doubt, and spiritual redemption. Crime and Punishment, The Brothers Karamazov, The Idiot, and Notes from Underground remain the most psychologically penetrating fiction ever written. He wrote under crushing deadlines, perpetually in debt.

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