Fyodor Dostoevksy

Fyodor Dostoevsky (November 11, 1821 - February 9, 1881) was a Russian writer, and is generally acknowledged to have been among the greatest novellists and psychologists (due in part to his three essays) in world literature. He wrote novels, short stories, and essays, but it is in his three novels: The Idiot, Crime and Punishment, and particularly The Brothers Karamazov, that his reputation as a genius primarily resides.

He is among the most widely studied writers in history, being comparable only to Shakespeare in the enormous influence he has had on other writers. This can be seen in almost every writer who came after him, including Anton Chekhov, Marcel Proust, Jack Kerouac, James Joyce, Sigmund Freud, Virginia Woolf, Franz Kafka and Ernest Hemingway. Alongside Leo Tolstoy, he is regarded as the leading figure of the Russian Golden Age.

Though his works are regularly praised for their philosophical and psychological depth, they have been criticised for their lack of artistic merit.[Who says?]