Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky (11 November 1821 – 9 February 1881) sometimes transliterated Dostoevsky, is a Russian writer of novels, short stories and essays.

Dostoyevsky's literary works explore human psychology in the troubled political, social and spiritual context of 19th-century Russia.

Although Dostoyevsky begins writing books in the mid-1850s, his most remembered work is from his last years, including Crime and Punishment, The Idiot and The Brothers Karamazov.

He writes eleven novels, three novellas, seventeen short novels and three essays, and is often acknowledged by critics as one of the greatest and most prominent psychologists in world literature.

Dostoyevsky was born and raised on the grounds of the Mariinsky hospital in Moscow, Russia.

At an early age he is introduced to English, French, German and Russian literature, as well as to fairy tales and legends.

His mother's sudden death devastateshim and, around the same time, he leaves private school for a military academy.

After his graduation, he wors as an engineer and briefly enjoys a liberal lifestyle.

He soon begins translating books to earn extra money.

Around the mid-1840s, he writes his first novel, Poor Folk, through which he enters into the literary mainstream.

In 1849, he is arrested for his involvement with the Petrashevsky Circle, a progressive discussion group.

He and other members are condemned to death for their participation in this group, but the penalty proves to be a mock execution at the last moment, and Dostoyevsky's sentence is commuted to four years of imprisonment in Siberia.

After his release, he is forced to serve as a soldier but is discharged from the military due to ill health and allowed to continue with his writing.

In the following years, Dostoyevsky works as a journalist.

He publishes and edits several magazines of his own and later a serial, A Writer's Diary.

Beginning with his travels to Europe he struggles with money issues because of his gambling addiction, resulting in the humiliation of begging for money.

He suffers from epilepsy throughout his adult life, but through the sheer energy and volume of his work he eventually becomes one of the most widely read and renowned writers in Russia.

His books have been translated into more than 170 languages and have sold around 15 million copies.

Dostoyevsky leaves a lasting legacy that has influenced many other writers, ranging from James Joyce to Ernest Hemingway, Jean-Paul Sartre and Ayn Rand, to name but a few.

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