The Brothers Karamazov - by Fyodor Dostoevsky (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Winner of the Pen/Book-of-the-Month Club Translation Prize

A handsome new collectible edition of Pevear and Volokhonsky's peerless translation of Dostoevsky's masterpiece with a new foreword from Karl Ove Knausgaard.

The Brothers Karamazov is a classic that only gets more timely with the ages. In its account of the murder trial of Fyodor Karamazov, it was the true-crime phenomenon of its day; in its study of how his three archetypally different sons butt heads and come under scrutiny in the wake of his death, it calls to mind any number of modern-day dramas about succession and power struggles. But most significantly, it is an unparalleled exploration of faith and morality, and a probing inquisition into the existence of God and free will. Through this gripping account of this family saga, Dostoevsky paints a portrait of Russia at a pivotal moment in its history--perched perilously between great freedom and great tragedy.

Review Quotes

"[Dostoevsky is] at once the most literary and compulsively readable of novelists we continue to regard as great . . . The Brothers Karamazov stands as the culmination of his art--his last, longest, richest and most capacious book. [This] scrupulous rendition can only be welcomed. It returns to us a work we thought we knew, subtly altered and so made new again." --Donald Fanger, Washington Post Book World

"It may well be that Dostoevsky's [world], with all its resourceful energies of life and language, is only now--and through the medium of this translation--beginning to come home to the English-speaking reader." --John Bayley, The New York Review of Books

"Heartily recommended to any reader who wishes to come as close to Dostoevsky's Russian as it is possible." --Joseph Frank, Princeton University

"Far and away the best translation of Dostoevsky into English that I have seen . . . faithful . . . extremely readable . . . gripping." --Sidney Monas, University of Texas

"No reader who knows The Brothers Karamazov should ignore this magnificent translation. And no reader who doesn't should wait any longer to acquaint himself with one of the peaks of modern fiction." --USA Today

About the Author

Fyodor Dostoevsky was a Russian novelist and writer of fiction whose works, including Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov, have had a profound and lasting effect on intellectual thought and world literature.

Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky were awarded the PEN/ Book-of-the-Month Translation Prize for The Brothers Karamazov and have also translated Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment, Notes from Underground, Demons, and The Idiot.