Books by Jessie Coulson
Memoirs from the House of the Dead
by Fyodor Dostoevsky, translated by Jessie Coulson
Memoirs from the House of the Dead by Fyodor Dostoevsky is written as fiction but is based on his time in a Siberian prison camp at Omsk. This is not a book about Kazakhstan, but we’ve included it because, on his release, Dostoevsky lived in exile (which included military service) in the Kazakh city of Semipalatinsk. You can visit one of the houses he lived in, which has been turned into a museum.
Interviews where books by Jessie Coulson were recommended
The Best Fyodor Dostoevsky Books, recommended by Alex Christofi
His father had clawed his way up into the minor aristocracy, but Fyodor Dostoevsky chose to live the life of an impecunious author. He was sentenced to death, but his execution was stayed and he spent years in a Siberian labour camp instead. His books are about human compassion, but he was a difficult man who had trouble with his own personal relationships. Alex Christofi, author of a brilliant new biography of Dostoevsky, one of Russia’s greatest novelists, recommends five books to learn more about the man and his work—including the novel of which Tolstoy said he ‘didn’t know a better book in all our literature’.
