One of Grossman’s three great war novels – alongside Life and Fate<\/i> and Stalingrad.<\/i><\/p>\n
“A significant, valuable addition to Grossman’s small but powerful body of work” WILLIAM BOYD<\/p>\n
“<\/i>A remarkable novel that illuminates the terrible realities of Barbarossa and the banal horror of warfare with incomparable understanding and insight” JONATHAN DIMBLEBY<\/p>\n
“There are always good reasons for reading Grossman, but few times are as resonant as our own” Financial Times<\/i><\/p>\n
“At the heart of his writing lies a tireless humanity and empathy” Telegraph<\/i><\/p>\n
“Grossman combines a journalist’s eye with a novelist’s empathy” Spectator<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n
Set during the catastrophic defeats of the war’s first months, it tracks a Red Army regiment that wins a minor victory in eastern Belorussia but fails to exploit this success. A battalion is then entrusted with the task of slowing the German advance, and eventually encircled, before ultimately breaking out and joining with the rest of the Soviet forces.<\/p>\n
Grossman’s descriptions of the natural world – and his characters’ relationship to it – are both vivid and unexpected, as are his memorable character sketches: eleven-year-old Lionya is determined to hang on to his toy revolver as he walks a long distance behind German lines; his defiant grandmother slaps a German officer in the face and is shot; Kotenko, a fiercely anti-Soviet peasant who initially welcomes the Germans, hangs himself in despair when they treat him with contempt; and Semion Ignatiev, a womanizer and gifted story-teller, turns out to be the boldest and most resourceful of the rank-and file soldiers.<\/p>\n
Grossman spent most of the war years close to the front line. But The People Immortal<\/i> is far from being mere morale-boosting propaganda. On the contrary, as letters included in this volume make clear, it was read as a textbook, and as a work of military education. This edition includes not only the unredacted novel itself, translated here for the first time since 1946, but also a wealth of background material.<\/p>\n
A heavily redacted English translation of The People Immortal <\/i>was published in 1946. This current edition is the first that reflects Grossman’s original text.<\/p>\n
Translated from the Russian by Robert and Elizabeth Chandler<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
One of Grossman’s three great war novels, ‘The People Immortal’ is both a work of fiction and an important contribution to the Soviet war effort. Set during the catastrophic defeats of the war’s first months, it tracks a Red Army regiment that wins a minor victory in eastern Belorussia but fails to exploit this success. A battalion is then entrusted with the task of slowing the German advance, and eventually encircled, before ultimately breaking out and joining with the rest of the Soviet forces.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"product_brand":[],"product_cat":[68],"product_tag":[446,599],"class_list":["post-99146","product","type-product","status-publish","product_cat-general-fiction","product_tag-second-world-war-fiction","product_tag-short-stories","pa_book_author-grossman-vasilii","pa_cover-paperback","pa_dewey-891-7342-edition23","pa_edition-1st-paperback-ed","pa_imprint-maclehose-press","pa_language-english","pa_pages-8497","pa_publisher-maclehose-press","pa_readership-general-trade-code-k","first","onbackorder","taxable","shipping-taxable","purchasable","product-type-simple"],"yoast_head":"\n