This image is the cover for the book Tolstoy or Dostoevsky

Tolstoy or Dostoevsky

The first book of criticism from the acclaimed author of After Babel—a “provocative and probing” look at Russian literature’s most influential writers (The New York Times).

“Literary criticism,” writes Steiner, “should arise out of a debt of love.” Abiding by his own rule, Tolstoy or Dostoevsky is an impassioned work, inspired by Steiner’s conviction that the legacies of these two Russian masters loom over Western literature. By explaining how Leo Tolstoy and Fyodor Dostoevsky differ from each other, Steiner demonstrates that when taken together, their work offers the most complete portrayal of life and the tension between the thirst for knowledge on one hand and the longing for mystery on the other. An instant classic for scholars of Russian literature and casual readers alike, Tolstoy or Dostoevsky explores two powerful writers and their opposing modes of approaching the world, and the enduring legacies wrought by their works. 

George Steiner

George Steiner, author of dozens of books (including The Death of Tragedy, After Babel, Martin Heidegger, In Bluebeard’s Castle, My Unwritten Books, George Steiner at the New Yorker, and The Poetry of Thought), is one of the world’s foremost intellectuals. He has been professor emeritus of English and comparative literature at the University of Geneva, professor of comparative literature and fellow at the University of Oxford, and professor of poetry at Harvard University. He lives in Cambridge, England, where he has been an Extraordinary Fellow at Churchill College at the University of Cambridge since 1969. 

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