Life and Fate

The War and Peace of the 20th century – Antony BeevorOne of the greatest masterpieces of the twentieth century * Times Literary Supplement *It is only a matter of time before Grossman is acknowledged as one of the great writers of the 20th century… Life and Fate is a book that demands to be talked about * Guardian *One of the finest Russian novels of the 20th century * Daily Telegraph *What better time to read Life and Fate, Vasily Grossman’s epic novel about the second world war, to put our current troubles into perspective? Grossman’s book, which traces the fate of the family of the brilliant physicist Viktor Shtrum at the time of the Battle of Stalingrad, records how humanity endured the monstrous evils of Nazism and Stalinism, surviving like weeds in the cracks of concrete slabs * Financial Times *Vasily Grossman is the Tolstoy of the USSR – Martin AmisAmong the most damning indictments of the Soviet system ever written * Wall Street Journal *[An] extraordinarily dark portrait of Soviet society – David Remnick

Vasily Grossman was born in 1905. In 1941, he became a war reporter for the Red Army newspaper Red Star and came to be regarded as a legendary war hero. Life and Fate, his masterpiece, was considered a threat to the totalitarian regime, and Grossman was told that there was no chance of the novel being published for another 200 years. Grossman died in 1964.