Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky - who was he in the eyes of his contemporaries? A genius, the greatest talent, a new star who has risen in the horizon of Russian literature, or, in the words of Ivan Turgenev, “the notorious Marquis de Sade,” who undeservedly enjoyed the glory that befell him? Henri Troyat does not judge. He gives readers the right to figure out for themselves who Dostoevsky really was: Alyosha Karamazov, Svidrigailov, or “just” an extraordinary person with a very difficult fate.