BY VASILY GROSSMAN
Translated by Robert Chandler and Elizabeth Chandler
Translated by Robert Chandler and Elizabeth Chandler
Vasily Grossman's novel Life and Fate is one of the great works of twentieth century literature, a modern story with the scope and power of War and Peace. Now, for the first time, the prequel to Life and Fate is available in English.
Stalingrad introduces the wide cast of characters whose stories continue in Life and Fate, including the physicist Viktor Shtrum and the other members of his troubled family, the Shaposhnikov clan in Stalingrad, soldiers and officers and nurses caught up in battle, and historical figures such as Hitler and Mussolini. The novel begins in the summer of 1942 with the Red Army in headlong retreat before the invading Germans and ends as the Soviets prepare to make their last stand on the banks of the Volga. Centered on the lives of the Shtrums and the Shaposhnikovs, Vasily Grossman's sweeping novel shows war touching on and transforming every aspect of human existence. It is there at the dinner table and in the science lab as much as at the battle front. And yet even in the midst of a devastating conflict where civilization itself is at stake, life and love, in all their complexity, fragility, and fraught beauty, must find a way to persist. Stalingrad, along with Life and Fate, is a story of extraordinary power and deep empathy—tender and fearless, intimate and epic.
"As a stand-alone novel, this is both gripping and enlightening, a tour de force. When considered as a whole with Life and Fate, this diptych is one of the landmark accomplishments of 20th-century literature.”
—Publishers Weekly, starred review
—Publishers Weekly, starred review
