Book description
When brutal landowner Fyodor Karamazov is murdered, the lives of his
sons are changed irrevocably: Mitya, the sensualist, whose bitter
rivalry with his father immediately places him under suspicion for
parricide; Ivan, the intellectual, whose mentaltortures drive him to
breakdown; the spiritual Alyosha, who tries to heal the family's rifts;
and the shadowy figure of their bastard half-brother Smerdyakov. As the
ensuing investigation and trial reveal the true identity of the
murderer, Dostoyevsky's dark masterpiece evokes a world where the lines
between innocence and corruption, good and evil, blur and everyone's
faith in humanity is tested. Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky was born
in Moscow in 1821. Between 1849 & 1854 he lived in a convict prison,
and in later years his passion for gambling led him deeply into debt. He
died in 1881. He is also the author of Crime & Punishment, The Idiot
and The Devils. David McDuff has translated a number of 19th-century
Russian prose works for Penguin Classics.
