Fyodor Dostoevsky

A celebrated new translation of Dostoevsky’s masterpiece reveals the “social problems facing our own society” (Nation). Published to great acclaim and fierce controversy in 1866, Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment has left an indelible mark on global literature and on our modern world. Declared a PBS “Great American Read,” Michael Katz’s sparkling new translation gives new life to the story of Raskolnikov, an impoverished student who sees himself as extraordinary and therefore free to commit crimes—even murder—in a work that best embodies the existential dilemmas of man’s instinctual will to power. Embracing the complex linguistic blend inherent in modern literary Russian, Katz “revives the intensity Dostoevsky’s first readers experienced, and proves that Crime and Punishment still has the power to surprise and enthrall us” (Susan Reynolds). With its searing and unique portrayal of the labyrinthine universe of nineteenth-century St. Petersburg, this “rare Dostoevsky translation” (William Mills Todd III, Harvard) will captivate lovers of world literature for years to come.

Crime and Punishment: A New Translation

Abigail Mills

And each time he passed by, the young man felt some painful and cowardly sensation, which nade him wince with shame. He was over his head in debt to the andlady and was afraid of meeting her.

He did not have far to go; he even knew how many steps it was from the gate of his house: exactly seven hundred and thirty. Once, when he was far gone in his dreaming, he had counted them. At that time he did not yet believe in these dreans of his, and only chafed himself with their ugly but seductive audacity. 

We sometimes encounter people, even perfect strangers, who begin to interest us at first sight, somehow suddenly, all at once, before a word has been spoken. Such was precisely the impression made on Raskolnikov by the guest who sat apart and looked like a retired official. 

He was far from stupid, though indeed a bit simple at times, His appearance was expressive-tall, thin, black-haired, always badly shaved. He could be violent on occasion, and was  reputed to be a very strong man. 

 This last day, which had come so much by chance and resolved everything at once, affected him almost wholly mechanically: as if someone had taken him by the hand and pulled him along irresistibly, blindly, with unnatural force, without objections. As if a piece of his clothing had been caught in the cogs ofa machine and he were being dragged into it. 

There is life! Was I not alive just now? My life hasn't died with the old crone! May the Lord remember her in His kingdom, and enough, my dear it's time to go! 

Nonsense! That is.. I'm drunk as a dolt, but that's not the point; I'm drunk, but not with wine. The moment I saw you it went to my head. But spit on me! Don't pay any attention: l'n talking nonsense, I'm unworthy of you I’m unworthy of you in the highest degree!.. But as soon as I’ve taken you home, I'll come straight here to the canal, and pour two tubs of water over my head, and be ready to go... If only you knew how I love you both! 

Bianca Miller 

I babble too much , however. That's why I don't do anything, because I babble. However, maybe it's like this: I babble because I don't do anything. 

We sometimes encounter people, even perfect strangers, who begin to interest us at first sight, somehow suddenly, all at once, before a word has been spoken. 

Poverty is no vice, that is the truth. I know that drunkenness is also no virtue, and that is even more so. In poverty, you may still preserve the nobility of your inborn feelings, but in destitution no one ever does. For destitution one does not even get driven out of human company with a stick; one is swept out with a broom, to make it more insulting; and justly so, For in destitution I am the first to insult myself. Hence the drinking!

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