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Dostoevsky was my literary idol for a long time.

I was a nut for Dostoevsky. You can tell a lot from what people read between those ages. My brother was a Steinbeck freak and now he lives in a little village in New Hampshire and he's a baker.

I took a 19th-century Russian novel class in college and have been smitten with Russian literature ever since. Writers like Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Grossman, and Solzhenitsyn tackle the great questions of morality, politics, love, and death.

I am trying to concentrate on books. You know, I love Dostoevsky; he's my favourite writer.

I first read Dostoyevsky when I was 14 years old and was entranced. Dostoyevsky truly is a writer for 14-year-olds, and I mean that in the most approving way - approving of his energy, and rage, his endless pessimism, and endless innocence.

I used to have a great love for Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy, the big boys of the last century.

I didn't choose Russia but Russia chose me. I had been fascinated from an early age by the culture, the language, the literature and the history to the place.

In terms of the Eastern Europe stories, my family is originally from there; even as a kid, it was the Russian writers I loved most, and I've spent a substantial amount of time there myself, traveling and on research grants.

I'm very attracted to exile literature - particularly Nabokov - exactly because the idea of being away from home for any serious length of time is so inconceivable to me.