From the Labor Camp to the Pantheon of Literature: How Dostoyevsky Became a Writer

“I have nothing, except for certain, and perhaps very minor, literary abilities.”

Aristotle believed that everyone’s true calling lies at the crossing point of their natural talent and the world’s need. But this simple, seductive equivalence breaks down as soon as we account for the myriad factors that go into the cultivation of natural talent and the myriad doors of opportunity that may open or close between the gifted and the world. “I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutio...