Garrard Carol, Garrard John. The Life and Fate of Vasily Grossman

Pen and Sword Military, 2012. — 464 p.Vasily Grossman (1905-64), one of the greatest authors of the twentieth century, served for over 1,000 days with the Red Army as a war correspondent on the Eastern front. He was present during the street-fighting at Stalingrad, and his 1944 report "The Hell of Treblinka", was the first eyewitness account of a Nazi death camp. Though he finished the war as a decorated lieutenant colonel, his epic account of the battle of Stalingrad, Life and Fate, was suppressed by Soviet authorities, and never published in his lifetime. Declared a "non-person", Grossman died in obscurity. Only in 1980, with the posthumous publication in Switzerland of Life and Fate was his remarkable novel to gain an international reputation. This meticulously researched biography by John and Carol Garrard uses archival and unpublished sources that only became available after the collapse of the Soviet Union. A gripping narrative.John Garrard is professor of Russian studies at the University of Arizona. Carol Garrard is an independent scholar. Together they are the authors of The Bones of Berdichev: The Life and Fate of Vasily Grossman, Inside the Soviet Writers' Union and Russian Orthodoxy Resurgent: Faith and Power in the New Russia.