{"title":"Vasily Grossman","description":"Vasily Grossman (1905--1964) was born in Berdichev in present-day Ukraine, the home of one of the largest Jewish communities in Eastern Europe. After studying chemistry and working as a mining engineer, he was discovered by Maxim Gorky, whose support enabled him to begin publishing his writing. Grossman was a combat correspondent during World War II, covering the defense of Stalingrad, the fall of Berlin, and writing the first account in any language of a German death camp. Although the manuscript for Life and Fate was initially seized and suppressed by the KGB in 1960, and Grossman did not live to see it published, it was smuggled out of the USSR a decade later with the help of Andrei Sakharov and Vladimir Voinovich. The novel was eventually published throughout Europe and North America in the early 1980s; it appeared in Russia in 1988. A Writer at War: Vasily Grossman with the Red Army, 1941--1945, a collection of Grossman's journalistic writings and notebook entries, was published in 2006.","products":[{"product_id":"life-and-fate-paperback","title":"Life and Fate - Paperback","description":"\u003cp\u003eA book judged so dangerous in the Soviet Union that not only the manuscript but the ribbons on which it had been typed were confiscated by the state, \u003cb\u003eLife and Fate\u003c\/b\u003e is an epic tale of World War II and a profound reckoning with the dark forces that dominated the twentieth century. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eInterweaving a transfixing account of the battle of Stalingrad with the story of a single middle-class family, the Shaposhnikovs, scattered by fortune from Germany to Siberia, Vasily Grossman fashions an immense, intricately detailed tapestry depicting a time of almost unimaginable horror and even stranger hope. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003eLife and Fate\u003c\/b\u003e juxtaposes bedrooms and snipers' nests, scientific laboratories and the Gulag, taking us deep into the hearts and minds of characters ranging from a boy on his way to the gas chambers to Hitler and Stalin themselves. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThis novel of unsparing realism and visionary moral intensity is one of the supreme achievements of modern Russian literature.\u003ch3\u003eFront Jacket\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003eSuppressed by the KGB, Life and Fate is a rich and vivid account of what the Second World War meant to the Soviet Union. \u003cbr\u003eOn its completion in 1960, Life and Fate was suppressed by the KGB. Twenty years later, the novel was smuggled out of the Soviet Union on microfilm. At the centre of this epic novel looms the battle of Stalingrad. Within a world torn apart by ideological tyranny and war, Grossman's characters must work out their destinies. Chief among these are the members of the Shaposhnikov family - Lyudmila, a mother destroyed by grief for her dead son; Viktor, her scientist-husband who falls victim to anti-semitism; and Yevgenia, forced to choose between her love for the courageous tank-commander Novikov and her duty to her former husband. Life and Fate is one of the great Russian novels of the 20th century, and the richest and most vivid account there is of what the Second World War meant to the Soviet Union.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BooksCloud","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50619016020191,"sku":"9781590172018","price":29.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0813\/8958\/4607\/files\/fk6CScTXbG9781590172018.webp?v=1785452327"},{"product_id":"life-and-fate-introduction-by-polly-jones-hardcover","title":"Life and Fate: Introduction by Polly Jones - Hardcover","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eThis panoramic novel about a family scattered across the Soviet Union and Europe during World War II is a monument of modern Russian literature by the Ukrainian-born writer hailed as \"the Tolstoy of the USSR.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSuppressed by the KGB and years later smuggled out of the Soviet Union to be published, Vasily Grossman's novel is an unsparing story of ordinary Russians tragically caught between the fascism of the invading Nazis and the oppression of their own Soviet government. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e The sprawling plot follows the travails of the extended family of Viktor Shtrum along the vast eastern front of the war. Shtrum is a brilliant nuclear physicist who faces rising anti-Semitism in Moscow while his relatives navigate the threat of camps and prisons on both the Soviet and the Nazi sides. Grossman's extensive wartime reporting, combined with his Tolstoyan narrative skills, allow him to portray with unprecedented detail and authenticity the human cost of the struggle between two freedom-denying powers. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e In vividly rendered scenes that range from the dramatic battle of Stalingrad to the remote Siberian gulag, and encompassing characters ranging from a grieving mother to a woman in love and from a six-year-old boy on the way to a gas chamber to Stalin and Hitler, Grossman's masterpiece is a profound and moving reckoning with the darkness of the twentieth century and a testament to the stubborn persistence of kindness and hope. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eEveryman's Library pursues the highest production standards, printing on acid-free cream-colored paper, with full-cloth cases with two-color foil stamping, decorative endpapers, silk ribbon markers, European-style half-round spines, and a full-color illustrated jacket.","brand":"BooksCloud","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50619016052959,"sku":"9780593321263","price":36.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0813\/8958\/4607\/files\/RbtWqjsAOf9780593321263.webp?v=1785452331"}],"url":"https:\/\/blackandbarhe.com\/collections\/vasily-grossman.oembed","provider":"Black \u0026 Barhe Bookstore","version":"1.0","type":"link"}