Crime and Punishment

Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky provide an excellent translation of Dostoevskys incredible psychological thriller newly revised for his bicentennial with the same flexibility energy and range of voices that earned their translation of The Brothers Karamazov the PEN/Book-of-the-Month Club Prize. Raskolnikov a poor student living in tsarist St. Petersburg commits a murder and a theft beginning a narrative that is almost unparalleled in world literature for its intense tension vivid atmosphere and rich characters and worldview. The heinous tale of an elderly womans murder is transformed into the most profound and captivating philosophical work of the nineteenth century by Dostoevskys drama of sin guilt and redemption.