Notes from a Dead House Lib/E

From renowned translators Richard Pevear and Lindsay Volokhonsky comes a new translation--certain to become the definitive version--of the first great prison memoir, a fictionalized account of Fyodor Dostoevsky's life-changing penal servitude in Siberia. Sentenced to death for advocating socialism in 1849, Dostoevsky served a commuted sentence of four years of hard labor. The account he wrote afterward (sometimes translated as The House of the Dead) is filled with vivid details of brutal punishments, shocking conditions, and the psychological effects of the loss of freedom and hope but also of the feuds and betrayals, the moments of comedy, and the acts of kindness he observed. As a nobleman and a political prisoner, Dostoevsky was despised by most of his fellow convicts, and his first-person narrator--a nobleman who has killed his wife--experiences a similar struggle to adapt. He also undergoes a transformation over the course of his ordeal, as he discovers that even among the most debased criminals there are strong and beautiful souls. Notes from a Dead House reveals the prison as a tragedy both for the inmates and for Russia. It endures as a monumental meditation on freedom.

About the Author :
Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821-1881), born in Moscow, lived much of his childhood distanced from his frail mother and officious father. During these formative years, he formed a close bond with his elder brother Mikhail. When they were teenagers, however, Fyodor and Mikhail were enrolled in separate boarding schools, Fyodor matriculating at an engineering school in St. Petersburg. Even as he was studying the trade of government, Dostoevsky was honing his skills as a writer, inking drafts of what would become his first novel-Poor Folk. In 1846, it was published to warm critical response. Something of a literary figure at the age of twenty-five, Dostoevsky began attending the discussion group that would result in his imprisonment. His sentence was commuted to four years in prison and four years of army service. His prison experiences, as well as his life after prison among the urban poor of Russia, provided a vivid backdrop for much of his later work. Released from his imprisonment and service by 1858, he began a fourteen-year period of furious writing, in which he published many significant texts, including The House of the Dead, Notes from the Underground, Crime and Punishment, The Idiot, and Devils. During this period, Dostoevsky's life was in upheaval, as he lost both his first wife and his brother. On February 15, 1867, he married his stenographer Anna Grigorevna Snitkina, who managed his affairs until his death. Two months before he died, Dostoevsky completed the epilogue to The Brothers Karamazov, which was published in serial form in the Russian Messenger. Richard Pevear, along with his wife Larissa Volokhonsky, has translated works by Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Chekhov, Gogol, Bulgakov and Pasternak. They both were twice awarded the PEN/Book-of-the-Month Club Translation Prize (for Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov and Tolstoy's Anna Karenina). They are married and live in France. Larissa Volokhonsky was born in Leningrad. She has translated works by the prominent Orthodox theologians Alexander Schmemann and John Meyendorff into Russian. Stefan Rudnicki is an avid audiobook narrator, receiving numerous Earphones Awards from AudioFile magazine. He is also a Grammy-winning audiobook producer.

Review :
"This startling book was a sensation in its day and became the source of all of Dostoevsky's mature fictions...Leo Tolstoy wrote that he did not know 'a better book in all modern literature.' One hundred and fifty years later, [Notes from a Dead House] still retains the quality of a literary experiment capable of shocking and moving its readers." -- "Robert Bird, author of Fyodor Dostoevsky"