Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Russian novelist who survived a death sentence and Siberian hard labor, later writing Crime and Punishment Show bio
Bio
Fyodor Dostoevsky spent his boyhood playing among the patients of a Moscow hospital for the poor. He fell in love with stories through the sagas and fairy tales his nanny read him.
Dostoevsky broke into Saint Petersburg's literary circles, then joined a group that discussed banned books. He was sentenced to death for it, and spared only at the last moment. Dostoevsky turned four years in a Siberian labor camp into The House of the Dead.
He later fell into a gambling addiction that left him begging for money. Dostoevsky still rose to become one of Russia's most widely read writers.