{"product_id":"9781841594033","title":"Life and Fate","description":"Author: Grossman, Vasily \u003cbr\u003eISBN: 9781841594033 \u003cbr\u003ePublisher: RANDOM HOUSE UK \u003cbr\u003eYear First Published: 2024 \u003cbr\u003ePages: 936 \u003cbr\u003eDimensions: 209mm x 135mm x 47mm \u003cbr\u003eFormat: Hardback \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDescripition: \u003cbr\u003eWritten in the 1950s, and suppressed in the USSR until 1988 - with the KGB destroying all Russian manuscripts, and even the typewriter ribbon on which it was written - Vasily Grossman's epic saga, the \u003ci\u003eWar and Peace\u003c\/i\u003e of the Soviet twentieth century, is an astounding work of literature and a devastating historical and political documentary on both Soviet Communism and German Nazism\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBased around the pivotal WWII battle of Stalingrad   (1942-3), where the German advance into Russia was eventually halted by the   Red Army, and around an extended family, the Shaposhnikovs, and their many   friends and acquaintances, \u003ci\u003eLife and Fate \u003c\/i\u003erecounts the experience of   characters caught up in an immense struggle between opposing armies and   ideologies. Nazism and Communism are appallingly similar, 'two poles of one   magnet', as a German camp commander tells a shocked old Bolshevik prisoner. At   the height of the battle Russian soldiers and citizens alike are at last able   to speak out as they choose, and without reprisal - an unexpected and   short-lived moment of freedom. Grossman himself was on the front line as a   war correspondent at Stalingrad - hence his gripping battle scenes, though   these are more than matched by the drama of the individual conscience   struggling against massive pressure to submit to the State. He knew all about   this from experience too. His central character, Viktor Shtrum, eventually   succumbs, but each delay and act of resistance is a moral victory. Though he   writes unsparingly of war, terror and totalitarianism, Grossman also tells of   the acts of 'senseless kindness' that redeem humanity, and his message   remains one of hope. He dedicates his book, the labour of ten years, and   which he did not live to see published, to his mother, who, like Viktor   Shtrum's, was killed in the holocaust at Berdichev in Ukraine in September 1941.","brand":"Ships in 10 to 15 days","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45540496277662,"sku":"UBD-9781841594033","price":39.78,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0400\/9043\/5742\/files\/9781841594033.jpg?v=1749178824","url":"https:\/\/classicbargains.com.au\/products\/9781841594033","provider":"Classic Bargains Australia","version":"1.0","type":"link"}