VASILY SEMIONOVICH GROSSMAN (1905-1964) was born into a Jewish family in Berdichev, in what is now Ukraine. In 1934 he published both In the Town of Berdichev - a short story that won him immediate acclaim - and the novel Gluckauf, about Donbas miners. During the Second World War, he worked as a reporter for the army newspaper Red Star; his The Hell of Treblinka (1944) was one of the first accounts of a Nazi death camp to be published in any language. His long novel Stalingrad was published in 1952. During the next few years Grossman worked on his second Stalingrad novel: Life and Fate. In February 1961, the KGB confiscated his typescript, but he was able to continue working on Everything Flows, which is yet more critical of the Soviet regime, until his last days. The short stories he wrote during his last three years are among his supreme achievements; English translations are included in The Road. Grossman died on 14 September 1964, on the eve of the twenty-third anniversary of the massacre of the Jews of Berdichev, in which his mother had died.
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 will want to read it again * Daily Telegraph on STALINGRAD * Few works of literature since Homer can match the piercing, unshakably humane gaze that Grossman turns on the haggard face of war * Economist on STALINGRAD * There are always good reasons for reading Grossman, but few times are as resonant as our own. As a proud son of Ukraine, steeped in Russian culture, Grossman was both a chronicler of the Soviet Union's greatest victories and a clear-eyed investigator of some of its darkest crimes. -- John Thornhill * Financial Times * The People Immortal is a remarkable novel that illuminates the terrible realities of Barbarossa and the banal horror of warfare with incomparable understanding and insight. As you would expect from Robert and Elizabeth Chandler, the translation is superb. -- Jonathan Dimbleby Grossman's great and enduring asset as a novelist is that - paradoxically - he didn't have to rely on his imagination. He was there . . . It gives his writing unrivalled authority . . . [A] significant, valuable addition to Grossman's small but powerful body of work -- William Boyd * Sunday Times * Grossman's future greatness is written in its pages . . . at the heart of his writing lies a tireless humanity and empathy -- Julian Evans * Telegraph * Its greatest strength lies in its authenticity . . . Grossman combines a journalist's eye with a novelist's empathy -- Michael Arditti * Spectator * Thanks to a superb translation by Robert and Elizabeth Chandler, based on Julia Volohova's meticulous work on Grossman's original text, we now have the most authoritative edition of The People Immortal yet to appear in English or, indeed, Russian. -- Tony Barber * Financial Times * Masterful literary fiction . . . Highly recommended, and beyond doubt the best war-related piece of writing this reviewer has read to date -- Emma Muldoon Ryan * Irish Examiner * An absorbing book, without the scope and critiques of Grossman's LIFE AND FATE, but with all of its humanity and discernment -- Declan O'Driscoll * Irish Times *