Vasily Grossman

An NYRB Classics OriginalFew writers had to confront as many of the last century’s mass tragedies as Vasily Grossman, who wrote with terrifying clarity about the Shoah, the Battle of Stalingrad, and the Terror Famine in the Ukraine. An Armenian Sketchbook, however, shows us a very different Grossman, notable for his tenderness, warmth, and sense of fun.       After the  Soviet Government confiscated—or, as Grossman always put it, “arrested”—Life and Fate, he took on the task of revising a literal Russian translation of a long Armenian novel. The novel was of little interest to him, but he needed money and was evidently glad of an excuse to travel to Armenia. An Armenian Sketchbook is his account of the two months he spent there.       This is by far the most personal and intimate of Grossman’s works, endowed with an air of absolute spontaneity, as though he is simply chatting to the reader about his impressions of Armenia—its mountains, its ancient churches, its people—while also examining his own thoughts and moods. A wonderfully human account of travel to a faraway place, An Armenian Sketchbook also has the vivid appeal of a self-portrait.

Life and Fate is an epic tale of a country told through the fate of a single family, the Shaposhnikovs. As the battle of Stalingrad looms, Grossman's characters must work out their destinies in a world torn apart by ideological tyranny and war. Completed in 1960 and then confiscated by the KGB, this sweeping panorama of Soviet society remained unpublished until it was smuggled into the West in 1980, where it was hailed as a masterpiece. Librarian's Note: This is an alternative cover edition of ISBN13: 9780099506164

Pocas novelas hay que emocionen y conmuevan como Vida y destino, un inmenso fresco humano heredero de la mejor tradición rusa. Mientras la cruel batalla de Stalingrado desangra a los ejércitos soviéticos y alemanes, los protagonistas de esta novela, comparada con Guerra y paz o Doctor Zhivago, luchan ferozmente para sobrevivir al terror del régimen estalinista y al horror del exterminio de los judíos. El dolor de una madre obligada a despedirse de su hijo, el amor de una joven bajo los bombardeos o la pérdida de su humanidad de los soldados en el frente ante la atrocidad de la guerra son algunas de las emocionantes historias que entretejen esta novela coral que retrata como ninguna el alma del hombre del siglo XX. Vasili Grossman aspiraba quizás a cambiar el mundo con su novela y lo que es seguro es que Vida y destino le cambia la vida a quien se adentra en sus páginas.

Роман В.Гроссмана, пришедший к читателю через двадцать с лишним лет после написания, посвящен переломному моменту в истории борьбы с фашизмом - Сталинградской битве. Эпическая широта охвата событий, бесстрашие, с которым писатель поднимает самые жгучие, болевые проблемы эпохи, гуманистическая направленность и художественное мастерство - все это позволяет отнести роман к числу лучших произведений русской советской литературы.Роман В.Гроссмана, пришедший к читателю через двадцать с лишним лет после написания, посвящен переломному моменту в истории борьбы с фашизмом - Сталинградской битве. Эпическая широта охвата событий, бесстрашие, с которым писатель поднимает самые жгучие, болевые проблемы эпохи, гуманистическая направленность и художественное мастерство - все это позволяет отнести роман к числу лучших произведений русской советской литературы.