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Monday, 27 July 2015

“White Nights” by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1948)


Under a bright night sky, on a bridge over the Neva River, a young dreamer comes across a woman in tears. Saint-Petersburg is immersed into another of its white nights, a natural phenomenon that makes the night seems as clear as day, and gives the city the dreamlike atmosphere ideal for these two lost souls to meet. Over four nights, the shy young man and the naive girl establish intense bonds, but the romantic course of this fleeting encounter may be threatened...

Author: Born in October 30, 1821 in Moscow, Fyodor Dostoyevsky was a Russian novelist, whose literary work explores human psychology in the troubled political, social, and spiritual atmosphere of 19th-century Russia. He is one of the greatest authors of all time. He began writing in his 20s. After being arrested and sentenced to death by the Tsarist regime in 1849, the sentence was commuted to four years of hard labour in Siberia. Underneath the author lived a man tormented by his father's murder, the death of a child, the permanent threat of epilepsy and a gambling addiction. He died in Saint Petersburg in 1881.

My thoughts: “White Nights” is among my favourite books. I simply couldn’t put it down: I read it in one night and felt butterflies in my stomach as I read on and on. Like love at first sight…an irresistible book! I loved the protagonist or should I say the dreamer, a loner in search for love and happiness.
It was in FNAC - Armazéns do Chiado, Lisbon that I came across a bookshelf with the collection "Os Livros da Minha Vida" (The Books of my Life) published by “Clube do Autor” in 2013. This is a set of works considered classic; they marked their time and have a special place in the history of literature. Each title is presented by a public figure, in order to highlight its most appealing features, and the impact it has had on his/her life at some point. To my great surprise, the preface of “White Nights” was written by Margarida Rebelo Pinto, my preferred Portuguese writer.

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