{"product_id":"life-and-fate-9781590172018","title":"Life and Fate","description":"A 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. \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.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eVasily Grossman\u003c\/b\u003e (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 \u003ci\u003eLife and Fate\u003c\/i\u003e 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. \u003ci\u003eA Writer at War: Vasily Grossman with the Red Army, 1941--1945, \u003c\/i\u003ea collection of Grossman's journalistic writings and notebook entries, was published in 2006. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003eRobert Chandler\u003c\/b\u003e is the translator of selections of Sappho and Apollinaire, as well as of Pushkin's \u003ci\u003eDubrovsky\u003c\/i\u003e and Leskov's \u003ci\u003eLady Macbeth of Mtsensk\u003c\/i\u003e. His co-translations of Andrey Platonov have won several prizes in both the UK and the US. He is the editor of \u003ci\u003eRussian Short Stories from Pushkin to Buida\u003c\/i\u003e; his most recent translation is of Hamid Ismailov's \u003ci\u003eThe Railway\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"New York Review of Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50608529834258,"sku":"9781590172018","price":21.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_93080df0-9f92-4270-ab8a-e75747d8d0b6.jpg?v=1732322457","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/life-and-fate-9781590172018","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}