Vasili Grossman’s major works could not be published until the time of Gorbachev. His masterpiece
Life and Fate is an epic account of the battle of Stalingrad. But - far more compassionate than Solzhenitsyn - it is a also a moving account of the many devastating and humiliating compromises decent people had to make under Stalin’s totalitarian regime. When the Garrards’ pioneering work first came out, Grossman was comparatively little known in the West except to specialists. This second edition is an important addition to the growing literature about one of Russia’s greatest writers of the twentieth century.
REVIEWS: ‘This is a master work by two masters of the historians’ craft, which illuminates the versatility and variety of human experience with clarity and insight, keeping a sharp focus on some of the worst torments known to history, through the life of an individual of whom the authors write that he ‘managed to rise above the pain, to tell his story in a manner that everyone can understand, and to impart meaning to a blizzard of disparate facts.’ It is John and Carol Garrard’s achievement that this story is told here with such power and poignancy.‘ Sir Martin Gilbert 'Vasili Grossman’s major works could not be published until the time of Gorbachev. His masterpiece Life and Fate is an epic account of the battle of Stalingrad. But - far more compassionate than Solzhenitsyn - it is a also a moving account of the many devastating and humiliating compromises decent people had to make under Stalin’s totalitarian regime. When the Garrards’ pioneering work first came out, Grossman was comparatively little known in the West except to specialists. This second edition is an important addition to the growing literature about one of Russia’s greatest writers of the twentieth century.‘ Sir Rodric Braithwaite SELLING POINTS: ILLUSTRATIONS: 30