Vasily Grossman (1905-1964) worked as a reporter for the
army newspaper Red Star during World War II. His vivid yet sober
The Hell of Treblinka was translated and used as testimony in the
Nuremberg trials. His novels Life and Fate and Everything Flows; a
collection of stories, journalism, and essays, The Road; and a work
of travel writing, An Armenian Sketchbook, are all published by
NYRB Classics.
Robert Chandler has translated many NYRB Classics, including
Vasily Grossman's Life and Fate, as well as Soul and The Foundation
Pit by Andrey Platanov. He lives in London.
Elizabeth Chandler is a co-translator, with Robert Chandler,
of several titles by Andrey Platonov and Vasily Grossman.
Winner of the Modern Language Association’s 2019 Lois Roth Award
for a Translation of a Literary Work
Nominated for the 2020 Read Russia Prize
Fiction Finalist, Three Percent’s Best Translated Book Award
2020
"Stalingrad is an epic novel, Tolstoyan in its proportions and
ambition. . . . [A]n ideal historical novel for a new generation of
readers.” —Time's "Must-Read Books of 2019"
"At last, the Russian novelist-journalist's mighty prequel
to 'Life and Fate', his epic of the battle of Stalingrad and
its aftermath, has received a definitive—and hugely
powerful—English translation. A seething fresco of combat, domestic
routine under siege and intellectual debate, it confirms that
Grossman was the supreme bard of the second world war.” —The
Economist, “Our books of the year”
"One needs time and patience to read Stalingrad, but it is worth
it. Moving majestically from Berlin to Moscow to the boundless
Kazakh steppe . . . A multitude of lives and fates are played out
against a vast panoramic history." —Ian Thomson, Evening Standard's
"Book of the Week"
“In its English version, Vasily Grossman’s Stalingrad is a
beautifully readable novel of considerable length, gripping from
beginning to end as it moves seamlessly from the dramas of
historical events to the small, intimate predicaments of family and
everyday life while war is raging. Robert Chandler and Elizabeth
Chandler’s historical understanding and archival research made it
possible to produce a book that salvages the novel from the fate of
its mangled original, censored in the process of writing, editing,
and production. Thanks to this English translation, Stalingrad is
repaired and made available to readers of the original in Russian
and to readers of other languages as well. This translation is both
a literary achievement and a contribution to
scholarship.” —Modern Language Association citation for the
2019 Lois Roth Award
"If you have read Grossman before, you will already very likely
know that you urgently want to read Stalingrad. If you haven’t, I
can only tell you that when you do read this novel, you will not
only discover that you love his characters and want to stay with
them—that you need them in your life as much as you need your own
family and loved ones—but that at the end . . . you want to read it
again." —Julian Evans, The Daily Telegraph
"This is a big event . . . [Stalingrad] gives voice to a dizzying
array of experiences . . . You do feel as though you are there,
wandering through those devastated streets among the starving,
dead, and mad." —Claire Allfree, Daily Mail
"A dazzling prequel . . . His descriptions of battle in an
industrial age are some of the most vivid ever written . . .
Stalingrad is Life and Fate’s equal. It is, arguably, the richer
book — shot through with human stories and a sense of life’s beauty
and fragility." —Luke Harding, The Observer
"[F]ew works of literature since Homer can match the piercing,
unshakably humane gaze that Grossman turns on the haggard face of
war." —The Economist
"An extraordinary novel by war correspondent Grossman, completing,
with Life and Fate, a two-volume Soviet-era rejoinder to War and
Peace . . . A classic of wartime literature finally available in a
comprehensive English translation that will introduce new readers
to a remarkable writer." —Kirkus, starred review
"Grossman’s epic, sprawling novel from 1952 is a masterpiece of
intertwined plots that cascade together in a long sequence of
militaristic horror. . . . When the bombing of Stalingrad begins,
Grossman cuts between viewpoints, rewinding time over and over
again. A spectacular afterword details the extent of censorship the
text suffered under Stalin. As a stand-alone novel, this is both
gripping and enlightening, a tour de force. When considered as a
whole with Life and Fate, this diptych is one of the landmark
accomplishments of 20th-century literature.” —Publishers
Weekly, starred review
“If you could only ever read one book about war, this should
probably be it.” —Valeria Paikova, Russia Beyond
Ask a Question About this Product More... |