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The Brothers Karamazov

by Fyodor Dostoevsky

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 mental tortures 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.

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Endorsements
  • 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

2002 · Originally published 1889