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The Brothers Karamazov Novel By Fyodor Dostoyevsky (in Russian: Бра́тья Карама́зовы, Brat'ya Karamazovy, pronounced [ˈbratʲjə kərɐˈmazəvɨ]), also translated as The Karamazov Brothers, is the final novel by Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky. Dostoevsky spent almost two years writing The Brothers Karamazov, which was published serially in The Russian Messenger from January 1879 until November 1880. Dostoevsky died less than four months after its publication.

The Brothers Karamazov is a passionate philosophical novel set in 19th-century Russia, which goes deeply into the ethical debates of God, free will and morals. It is a spiritual and theological drama of moral struggles related to faith, doubt, judgment and reason, in the face of a modernizing Russia, with a plot that revolves around the issue of patricide. Dostoevsky composed much of the novel in Staraya Russa, which inspired the main stage. Since its publication, it has been hailed as one of the supreme achievements in world literature.

Book Summary
The Brothers Karamazov Novel by Fyodor Dostoyevsky is a murder mystery, a courtroom drama, and an exploration of erotic rivalry in a series of triangular love affairs involving the “wicked and sentimental” Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov and his three sons―the impulsive and sensual Dmitri; the coldly rational Ivan; and the healthy, red-cheeked young novice Alyosha. Through the gripping events of their story, Dostoevsky portrays the whole of Russian life, is social and spiritual striving, in what was both the golden age and a tragic turning point in Russian culture.

This award-winning translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky remains true to the verbal
inventiveness of Dostoevsky’s prose, preserving the multiple voices, the humor, and the surprising modernity of the original. It is an achievement worthy of Dostoevsky’s last and greatest novel.

Book Club Questions

Book Review
Dostoevsky is both the most literary and compulsively readable novelist that we still consider great. . . The Karamazov brothers stand as the culmination of their art: their last book, the longest, the richest and the widest. This scrupulous interpretation can only be welcomed. It gives us back a job we thought we knew, subtly altered and, therefore, made new again.

About The Author
Fyodor Mikhaylovich Dostoyevsky (Russian: Фёдор Михайлович Достоевский), sometimes transliterated Dostoevsky (see Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky/Fyodor Dostoevsky/Feodor Dostoevsky) or Dostoïevski (see Fiodor Dostoïevski/Fiódor M. Dostoievski/Fédor Mikhaïlovitch Dostoïevski), was a Russian novelist, journalist, and short-story writer whose psychological penetration into the human psyche had a profound influence on the 20th-century novel.

Dostoyevsky was the second son of a former army doctor. He was educated at home and at a private school. Shortly after the death of his mother in 1837, he was sent to St. Petersburg, where he entered the Army Engineering College. Dostoyevsky's father died in 1839, most likely of apoplexy, but it was rumored that he was murdered by his own serfs. Dostoyevsky graduated as a military engineer but resigned in 1844 to devote himself to writing. His first novel, Poor Folk appeared in 1846.

That year he joined a group of utopian socialists. He was arrested in 1849 and sentenced to death, commuted to imprisonment in Siberia. Dostoyevsky spent four years in hard labor and four years as a soldier in Semipalatinsk, a city in what it is today Kazakhstan.

Dostoyevsky returned to St. Petersburg in 1854 as a writer with a religious mission and published three works that derive in different ways from his Siberia experiences: The House of the Dead, (1860) a fictional account of prison life, The Insulted and Injured, which reflects the author's refutation of naive Utopianism in the face of evil, and Winter Notes on Summer Impressions, his account of a trip to Western Europe.

In 1857 Dostoyevsky married Maria Isaev, a 29-year old widow. He resigned from the army two years later. Between the years 1861 and 1863, he served as editor of the monthly periodical Time, which was later suppressed because of an article on the Polish uprising.

In 1864-65 his wife and brother died and he was burdened with debts. His situation was made even worse by his gambling addiction. From the turmoil of the 1860s emerged Notes from the Underground, a psychological study of an outsider, which marked a major advancement in Dostoyevsky's artistic and creative development.

In 1867 Dostoyevsky married Anna Snitkin, his 22-year old stenographer. They traveled abroad and returned in 1871. By the time of The Brothers Karamazov (1879-80), Dostoyevsky was recognized in his own country as one of its great writers.