Book description
I am a sick person. I am a spiteful person. An unattractive person, too
. . . In the depths of a cellar in St. Petersburg, a civil servant spews
forth a passionate and furious note on the ills of society. The
underground man's manifesto reveals his erratic, self-contradictory and
even sadistic nature. Yet in Dostoyevsky's most radical and disturbing
character, there is the uncomfortable flicker of recognition of the
human condition. When the narrator ventures above ground, he attends a
dinner with a group of old school friends. It is here, paralysed by his
own social awkwardness, that he carries out extraordinary acts and
cements his status as a true and original outsider. One of the most
revolutionary and original works of world literature. Fyodor
Mikhailovich Dostoevsky was born in Moscow in 1982. He has written many
works of fiction including Crime and Punishment, The Idiot and The
Brothers Karamazov. He died in St. Petersburg on 9th February 1881.
Natasha Randall has worked as a translator from the Russian for many
years in New York, Moscow and St. Petersburg. She has translated a
number of the Russian greats including Mikhail Lermontov. Her writing
has appeared in A Public Space, the Los Angeles Times Book Review, The
Moscow Times, BookForum, The New York Times, HALI magazine, The Strad
magazine, The St. Petersburg Times (FL), and on National Public Radio.
She also wrote a column on books and publishing for Publishing News (UK)
from 2002 to 2007. She writes articles on the topics of literature,
Islamic art, Russian culture and music.
