The Story of Crime and Punishment

You should go to a street corner and get down on your knees and tell the whole world: "I have sinned."

Raskolnikov is a poor student living in St Petersburg. Desperate to escape his poverty, he murders his pawnbroker and her sister, and flees with a few watches and bits of jewellery. Although at first nobody suspects him, his own conscience plagues him incessantly - and it isn't long before a highly intelligent police detective by the name of Petrovich begins to have his doubts about Raskolnikov's innocence, and is determined to make him confess.


Dave Eggers says, of the series: "I couldn't be prouder to be a part of it. Ever since Alessandro conceived this idea I thought it was brilliant. The editions that they've complied have been lushly illustrated and elegantly designed."

A. B. Yehoshua is one of Israel's pre-eminent writers. His novels include A Journey to the End of the Millenium, The Liberated Bride and A Woman in Jerusalem, which was awarded the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in 2007. He lives in Haifa.

Translated from the Hebrew by Stuart Schoffman

Sonja Bougaeva was born in 1975 in St Petersburg, the city in which this story takes place. After studying painting at the Academy of Arts she worked as an apprentice in a film studio, in order to learn how to make animated
films. She now lives in Hamburg, and in 2006 she was shortlisted for the German Children's Book Award.