Crime and Punishment, Volumes 1 and 2, by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky's magnificent novel, Crime and Punishment, explores a wide range of social and moral issues that, in his view, were linked to the collapse of the feudal system and the rise of capitalism in Russia—a collapse accompanied by a surge in crime and a diversification of its motives. This is evident to the reader in the vivid depictions of Petersburg in the novel, scenes imbued with the characteristics of everyday life. The reader also perceives in the thoughts of Raskolnikov and other characters in Crime and Punishment an echo of the ideological conflicts that were raging at the time of its writing. Translated by Dr. Fouad Al-Marai, this is the first translation of the novel directly from Russian into Arabic. It is neither a revision of a previous translation nor a chronicle of the events of the novel, nor an Arabic rendering of the meanings of the original text. Rather, it is a sincere attempt that has strived, as much as possible, to be faithful to the Russian text, so that you may find equivalent forms in Arabic in terms of meaning, style, and aesthetic and artistic characteristics. It has also preserved, as much as possible, the multiplicity of voices according to the multiplicity of characters in the novel, and this is a fundamental characteristic of all of Dostoevsky's novels. It is an attempt to present the original Russian text to the Arab reader, with the greatest possible fidelity.