A genuine masterpiece!

This is an account of the life in a 19th Siberian prison, based on Dostoyevsky’s personal experiences as a prisoner for some political scheme or other. Dostoyevsky had to spend four years in prison under the most horrific of conditions, with inadequate food and shelter, and little or no privacy, and above all with the most vicious people gathered from all over Russia.
But he was not a novelist for nothing; every experience, even the most humiliating, was grist to his mill. In fact, by making a through psychological and sociological study of prisoners who had committed heinous crimes, Dostoyevsky managed to go into human hearts and minds more deeply than anyone else has ever done. Even as a book dealing with human psychology, this book will not be outdone by any books written by the most distinguished psychologists.
For example, in the prison, “The scandals and gossip never ceased: this was a hell, a dark night of the soul.” And even in such a circumstance, Dostoyevsky