The House Of The Dead, Or Prison Life In Siberia, by Fyodor Dostoevsky
It is a truism, even perhaps a cliche, that people should write about what they know. And before Dostoevsky was a celebrated Russian writer whose novels continue to draw a great deal of praise and acclaim, he was a jailbird in Siberia for political offenses. So it is little surprise that the world of prison literature [1] is enriched by this very semi-autobiographical novel of a Russian nobleman who had spent ten years in prison. I cannot say that I found this book pleasant to read, necessarily, but I did find it to be a compelling piece of literature that demonstrates the author’s awareness of the folly of prison as a way of reforming those who have been convicted of crimes and also as a look into the psyche of the Russian people as a sensitive and…
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