From The Willows to Silence, from The Brothers Karamazov to Tom Peter Inez, The New York Times has been publishing poems and essays honoring some of Dostoyevsky’s most enduring works for most of his life. Ad Policy
The most famous of these is The Brothers Karamazov, a mammoth work of fiction that remains among the greatest novels ever published. The fictional histories of the godfathers K., Alyosha, Katerina, Gomorrah, Gorsky, and the whole 19th-century Russian family have captivated readers for centuries, including many who have never read the real novel in its entirety.
On Oct. 1, the eve of Dostoyevsky’s 200th birthday, we will publish a special edition of the Times poetry column. Each poem will tell a different story from the bibliography of The Brothers Karamazov. It will include a foreword by Martha Nussbaum, a fellow poet and a professor of English at New York University.
Ahead of the anniversary we published a new edition of the original The Brothers Karamazov in the Times Classics series. Inspired by and featuring new translations of the novel by Warren Bennis, whose poems The Brothers Karamazov is alive with the same lustrous and evocative force, this grand, lavishly illustrated edition brings all of the novel into one place for the first time ever. A companion short book, with the stories of K. through Gorsky and the real novel retold in their chronological order, is available now.
On Nov. 10, the Times poetry section will publish a new anthology: 200 Epigrams for Dostoyevsky, edited by Joyce Janes. Each piece will relate to the fictional events from the novel, and some will be set to music. Enjoy.
We hope you enjoy the world of The Brothers Karamazov.
Dostoyevsky
More than a work of fiction
Its history lives on in the minds
of generations.
Dostoyevsky
Those who admired Dostoyevsky
and knew his work
could be identified
by the simple names of names
like the Brothers and yet no one could
say with certainty where the world ended
and the Brothers began.
Dostoyevsky
If only we could be all that our names
indicate
or more
I propose to leave for all
countless of those who never
seem to
examine my
nameless
character.
Dostoyevsky
For Dostoyevsky, literature was not
the act of bringing us to order,
but rather
a living reality of its own,
filled with more than
the coincidences of a cast
of unforgettable characters.