The Brothers Karamazov

‘Oh, if you were the kind of man I am … I loved the shame of depravity. I loved cruelty … In a word – a Karamazov!’

The murder of brutal landowner Fyodor Karamazov changes the lives of his sons 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 masterwork evokes a world where the lines between innocence and corruption, good and evil blur, and everyone’s faith in humanity is tested.

This powerful translation of The Brothers Karamazov features an introduction highlighting Dostoyevsky’s recurrent themes of guilt and salvation, with a new chronology and further reading.