Author:Fyodor Dostoyevsky,Richard Pevear,Richard Pevear,Larissa Volokhonsky

Pevear and Volokhonsky's translation is the only translation that counts. They are the only translators who succeed in making Dostoevsky accessible to a 21st century audience, thanks to their ruthless attention to detail at the expense of alterations which can dilute Dostoevsky's unique and flowing style of writing. The great appeal this book retains even today is in part due to Pevear and Volokhonsky, as well as to Dostoevsky himself. Furthermore, Richard Pevear's substantial introduction is essential reading. It explains the purpose of the book and the historical significance of its ideas. Dostoevsky was writing at a time when Russia had reason to be optimistic, but the warning signs in his fiction perhaps leave us clues as to why Russia still has social problems today - and why, less than 40 years after Dostoevsky's death, Russia embraced Communism and destroyed the society in which Dostoevsky had lived
The coming-of-age tale is the perfect debut, playing to the debutante's freshness and flaws, and Awerbuck has turned in a bittersweet example of the genre
—— ObserverFeisty and funky and funny... a remarkable reading adventure. This is a South Africa the international reader has not yet seen: the wood of smallness and ordinariness and quirkiness of everyday life hidden behind the trees of politics
—— André BrinkAn exuberant and nakedly confessional novel
—— Cape TimesSo far beyond and above the Average Novel. The writing is brilliant- You will not have read anything like this before- The smart person's beach read.
—— Ellen Moore , Good Books LatelyStrange. Dark. But could we put it down? No. Because the writing and the strange gothic story being told are as compelling as a campfire ghost story
—— Ann LaFarge