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At first glance, the works of Fedor Dostoevsky (1821–1881) do not appear to have much in common with those of the controversial American writer Henry Miller (1891–1980). However, the influencer of Dostoevsky on Miller was, in fact, enormous and shaped the latter’s view of the world, of literature, and of his own writing. The Making of a Counter-Culture Icon examines the obsession that Miller and his contemporaries, the so-called Villa Seurat circle, had with Dostoevsky, and the impact that this obsession had on their own work. Renowned for his psychological treatment of characters, Dostoevsky became a model for Miller, Lawrence Durrell, and Anais Nin, interested as they were in developing a new kind of writing that would move beyond staid literary conventions. Maria Bloshteyn argues that, as Dostoevsky was concerned with representing the individual’s perception of the self and the world, he became an archetype for Miller and the other members of the Villa Seurat circle, writers who were interested in precise psychological characterizations as well as intriguing narratives. Tracing the cross-cultural appropriation and (mis)interpretation of Dostoevsky’s methods and philosophies by Miller, Durrell, and Nin, The Making of a Counter-Culture Icon gives invaluable insight into the early careers of the Villa Seurat writers and testifies to Dostoevsky’s influence on twentieth-century literature.

William Faulkner frequently talked of his special respect for Russian novelists, in particular, Dostoevsky, placing him among the great writers who inspired him not only to \"match\" their achievements but to outdo them. Bloshteyn examines Faulkner's fiction and his Dostoevskian allusion, in a short passage found in Requiem for a Nun. Just as Dostoevsky's works retained their relevance and impact across the barriers of language, geography, and time, so Faulkner's novels continue to successfully navigate cross-cultural situations and at the beginning of the third millennium his international reputation, like Dostoevsky's own, shows no sign of declining.

Richard Wright and two of his erstwhile friends, Ralph Ellison and James Baldwin, justly occupy a central place in African American literature. Even more significantly , these three writers have strong connections to Dostoevsky that go far beyond their considerable interest in Russian literature and the Soviet Union. Bloshteyn discusses how writings of Wright, Ellison and Baldwin relate Dostoevsky.

Bloshteyn examines the importance of Fedor Dostoevsky to American southern literature. Many writers suggest that they identify with Dostoevsky not just as American writers but specifically as southern writers and that their southern heritage has a lot to do both with their attraction to and interpretation of Dostoevsky's novels.