Born 200 years ago, What Is Fyodor Dostoevsky Telling Us Today Through His Novels?
Dostoevsky’s books – with their unique mix of dark comedy and pathos – are notoriously gloomy. Yet they can be oddly uplifting. In them he tested the very limits of human freedom: in prison he bore witness to the darkest sides of human nature; in his later years in freedom he agonised over our natural dogmatism and self-destructiveness.