One observation I have made is that books have a great ability to influence people. That influence can be good (the books of C.S. Lewis) or evil (Hitler’s Mein Kampf).

The reason I write books is to influence people spiritually and to give them wisdom to help them live wisely. I have also come to realize that with books, you never know where your influence ends. A person may read a book, and then give a copy to someone else. Over the years, a book that you give someone may have a powerful influence on many people that you will never know about.

I recently read in one of Charles Colson’s books, The Good Life: Seeking Purpose, Meaning, and Truth in Your Life, about the life of the great Russian author Fyodor Dostoyevsky. From 1860 to 1880 he wrote his major novels, among them Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov. He died in 1881.

Dostoyevsky’s novels helped keep the Christian faith alive during the seventy years of Soviet repression that began in 1918.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, the dissident whose Nobel Prize-winning books exposed the repression of the Soviet gulag, took many of his cues from Dostoyevsky. Through Solzhenitsyn and other dissidents who treasured Dostoyevsky’s work, Dostoyevsky’s suffering proved an indirect but powerful force in toppling the evil Soviet regime.

What most people don’t know about is the powerful event that shaped Dostoyevsky’s life.

Enamored with French utopian socialism, the young Russian intellectual attended a meeting that the czar believed was subversive. For that, Dostoyevsky was condemned to eight years of hard labor. After he had been in custody for a time, he learned that his sentence had been changed to execution by firing squad. On a bleak winter day, Dostoyevsky and his fellow prisoners were marched through the snow in front of the firing squad. As a military official shouted out the death sentences, a priest led each man to a platform, giving him an opportunity to kiss the cross the priest carried.

Three of the prisoners were then marched forward and tied to a stake. Dostoyevsky looked on, realizing he would be next in line. He watched the soldiers pull the men’s caps down over their eyes. He felt revulsion in his stomach as the firing squad lifted their rifles, adjusted their aim, and stood ready to pull the triggers.

Frozen in suspense, Dostoyevsky waited for what seemed like a lifetime. Then he heard the drums start up again. But they were beating retreat! He watched, stunned, as the firing squad lowered their rifles and the soldiers removed the prisoners’ caps from their eyes. Their lives—and life would be spared.

Immediately after this incident, Dostoyevsky wrote a letter to his brother about the change the experience had worked in him: “When I look back on my past and think how much time I wasted on nothing, how much time has been lost in futilities, errors, laziness, incapacity to live; how little I appreciated it, how many times I sinned against my heart and soul—then my heart bleeds. Life is a gift … Now, in changing my life, I am reborn in a new form. Brother! I swear that I will not lose hope, and will keep my soul and heart pure. I will be transformed for the better. That’s all my hope, all my consolation!”

Dostoyevsky’s near execution and the eight dreary years in a Siberian prison gave him a unique gift: the ability to see life from its end. He understood what really mattered in a way most of us never do. And this perspective equipped him to write great novels filled with incredible insights into the human condition and into the battle between good and evil.

Richard E Simmons III is the founder and Executive Director of The Center for Executive Leadership and a best-selling author.