Fyodor Dostoyevsky

WORKS THAT HAVE APPEARED IN NARRATIVE:

White Nights, a short story, in Stories of the Week: 2008–2009

Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821–1881) was born to a despot possibly killed by his own serfs. Childhood epilepsy informs characters in both The Idiot and The Brothers Karamazov. “White Nights” (1848) is set in a Westernized St. Petersburg, its narrator depicted as Dostoyevsky once described himself: a dreamer. In 1849, as a liberal intellectual, Dostoyevsky was imprisoned in Siberia and forced into the army. A different writer emerged: devoted to Russian culture, psychologically rigorous, and politically conservative, he conceived tortured characters and existential themes. He died from a seizure.