LIFE AND FATE is regarded by many as the greatest novel of World War II, a War and Peace for the 20th Century. Born to a Jewish family in !905, Vitaly Grossman was one of the greatest writers/journalists of the Stalinist era. Written in the 1950's and submitted for publication in 1960, the book and all typewriter ribbons were immediately confiscated by the KGB. It was not published until 1980, in the West, and was widely unknown until the Chandler translation in 2006. LIFE AND FATE is an epic tale of the war from the standpoint of Soviet citizens and a profound reckoning with the dark forces that dominate the last century. Largely from his own life experience, Grossman interweaves a gripping account of the Battle of Stalingrad with the story of an extended family, scattered by fate from Germany to Siberia. He fashions an immense tapestry, depicting a time of almost unimaginable horror and even stranger hope. LIFE AND FATE juxtaposes bedrooms and snipers' nests, scientific laboratories and the Gulag, and Stalinism and Nazism, taking us deep into the hearts and minds of unforgettable characters. Literature and/or History buffs will be enthralled with this tale of unsparing realism and moral intensity, a "supreme achievement" in understanding World War II from the perspective of those who endured the most.
14 weeks, approximately 60 pages per week.
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LIFE AND FATE by Vasily Grossman. Translated and with an Introduction by Robert Chandler, New York Review Books (2006).
Other: Vasily Grossman and the Soviet Century by Alexandra Popoff, Yale University Press (2019).