The Brothers Karamazov is the final novel by the Russian author Fyodor Dostoyevsky. He spent nearly two years writing it. The author died less than four months after its publication. The Brothers Karamazov is a passionate philosophical novel set in 19th century Russia, that enters deeply into the ethical debates of God, free will, and morality. It is a spiritual drama of moral struggles concerning faith, doubt, and reason, set against a modernizing Russia, with a plot which revolves around the subject of patricide. Since its publication, it has been acclaimed as one of the supreme achievements in literature.