The Master of Petersburg

Blurb

The Master of Petersburg is a 1994 novel by South African writer J. M. Coetzee. The novel is a work of fiction but features the Russian writer Fyodor Dostoyevsky as its protagonist. It is a deep, complex work that draws on the life of Dostoyevsky, the life of the author and the history of Russia to produce profoundly disturbing results. It won the 1995 Irish Times International Fiction Prize.
The content of the novel is strongly based on "At Tikhon's", a chapter written by Dostoyevsky for his 1872 novel Demons but suppressed by his editor M.N. Katkov. The chapter was never reinstated in the novel but is found as an appendix in many modern editions. In the chapter, the character Nikolai Stavrogin confesses to a sordid liaison with a 14-year-old girl, Matryosha. Matryosha, and the setting of Stavrogin's tale, appear in The Master of Petersburg.
Hanging over the novel is a scene from Coetzee's own life: the death of his son at 23 in a mysterious falling accident. Dostoyevsky is found at the start of the novel trying to accept the death of his stepson Pavel, which occurs in a similar manner.