About the Author

Andrew D. Kaufman is an associate professor, General Faculty, lecturer in Slavic Languages and Literatures, and assistant director of the Center for Teaching Excellence at the University of Virginia. A PhD in Slavic languages and literatures from Stanford University, Kaufman is the author of Give War and Peace a Chance: Tolstoyan Wisdom for Troubled Times and Understanding Tolstoy, and a coauthor of Russian for Dummies. His work has been featured on Today, NPR, and PBS, and in The Washington Post, and he has served as a Russian literature expert for Oprah’s Book Club. Kaufman is the creator of Books Behind Bars, introducing incarcerated youth to the writings of Dostoyevsky and other authors.

Reviews

Praise for The Gambler Wife:
 
“Recounts Anna’s agony in scenes as gut-wrenching as any we might encounter in her husband’s novels.” —New York Times Book Review

“The Gambler Wife is not only a much-needed act of justice; it is also profoundly entertaining, sometimes funny, and sometimes intolerably sad.” —A. N. Wilson, The Times Literary Supplement

“Fascinating [and] colorful . . . Kaufman successfully corrects biographical accounts that have 'erased' Snitkina’s flair. Highly readable, this page-turning narrative will appeal to Dostoyevsky fans and literature-lovers in general.” —Publishers Weekly

“Deeply researched [and] informative . . . A fresh look at a spirited woman who played a significant role in literary history.” —Kirkus Reviews

“The story of an intriguing, impressive woman who has too long been treated as a footnote in her husband’s story. . . . Feminism, history, literature, politics—this tale has all of that, and a heroine worthy of her own turn in the spotlight.” —Therese Anne Fowler, bestselling author of Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald

“With enlightening research and engaging prose, The Gambler Wife recounts the improbable and profoundly influential relationship that lay at the heart of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s literary enterprise: his marriage to Anna Snitkina. Hers is an inspiring, unexpectedly modern story of partnership, ambition, and achievement, and Andrew Kaufman tells it brilliantly.”
—Caroline Weber, author of Proust’s Duchess
 
“Dostoevsky called her 'the little diamond,' and Anna Snitkina was just that—at once brilliant and entrancing, yet rock-hard and indestructible. Andrew D. Kaufman’s captivating book restores Anna to her rightful place and opens a window onto a dizzyingly complex relationship that helped to give us some of the world’s greatest novels.”
—Douglas Smith, author of The Russian Job and Rasputin
 
“With access to recently discovered sources, rich historical context, and deep psychological insight, Andrew Kaufman reveals Anna Dostoyevskaya as not only Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s wife but also his editor and inspiration, critic and enabler—an innovative publisher, pioneering feminist, and every bit as much a gambler as her husband. And The Gambler Wife, while rigorously grounded in the sources, itself reads like a Dostoevsky novel.”
—William Mills Todd III, Professor of Literature Emeritus, Harvard University
 
“A riveting tale—a true literary love story that defies and compels the imagination at once . . . A fine and formidable book.”
—Jay Parini, author of The Last Station and Borges and Me