First published 2020
The narrator wanders St. Petersburg's streets each night, a solitary dreamer who has never spoken to women or experienced love. During one of his regular walks, he encounters Nastienka, a young woman who captivates him completely. Their honest conversations over four nights and one morning awaken something in him he has never felt before. Though he remains poor and alone, and reality proves as elusive as always, the narrator discovers that simply sensing love through their sincere exchanges makes him feel blessed. Dostoyevsky's 1848 novella follows this archetypal lonely young dreamer as he pursues his fantasies amid solitude and poverty, finding unexpected connection in the white nights of Russia's northern capital.
Genres: fiction, romance, 20th-century, 19th-century
Vibes: intimate, lyrical, thought-provoking
Tropes: lonely-protagonist, unreliable-narrator
Setting: St. Petersburg, Russia
Period: 1848
100 pages · Paperback · Independently published