Fyodor Dostoevsky
Fyodor Dostoevsky wrote The Brothers Karamazov, Crime and Punishment, The Idiot, and many other novels.
Dostoevsky is a literary titan.
— David Foster Wallace
Two Crocodiles
by Fyodor Dostoevsky and Felisberto Hernández
Translated by Constance Garnett and Esther Allen
Two Crocodiles highlights two literary masters from opposite ends of the world — Russia’s Fyodor Dostoevsky and Uruguay’s Felisberto Hernández. Dostoevsky’s crocodile, cruelly displayed in a travelling sideshow, gobbles whole a pretentious high-ranking civil servant. But the functionary survives unscathed and seizes his new unique platform to expound to the fascinated public. Dostoevsky’s Crocodile is a matchless, hilarious satire.
Hernández’s Crocodile, on the other hand, while also terribly funny, is a heartbreaker. A pianist struggling to make ends meet as a salesman finds success when he begins to weep before clients and audience alike, but then he can’t stop the crocodile tears.
Dostoevsky is a literary titan.
— David Foster Wallace
