Novelist · 1821 – 1881

Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky

Little-Known Facts

In 1849 he was led before a firing squad before his death sentence was commuted at the last moment, an experience that marked him for life.
He suffered from epilepsy, a condition he gave to several of his characters, including Prince Myshkin in The Idiot.

Was Dostoevsky simply a gloomy writer?

Though his work confronts suffering and despair, it is ultimately concerned with faith, compassion, and the possibility of redemption.