Los hermanos Karamázov

Written between 1879 and 1880, THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV is the last novel written by Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821-1881) and represents a synthesis of all the author's existential concerns. Its complex gallery of characters is presided over by Fyodor Karamazov, the father—vile, hypocritical, avaricious, cynical, and debauched—and by his descendants: Dmitri, sensual, proud, and cruel, but also generous and capable of acts of kindness and sacrifice; Ivan, a skeptical intellectual who denies the existence of God and love for one's neighbor; Alyosha, a mystical Christian who opposes revolutionary humanitarianism and nihilism with love for God and one's neighbor, though he is not immune to the murky sensations that invade him; and finally Smerdyakov, the cynical and perverse illegitimate son, devoid of any sense of moral responsibility. The work, which reaches one of its climaxes with the famous tale of the Grand Inquisitor, reflects a conception of man as a battlefield where God and the Devil, good and evil, fight.