The People Immortal [Paperback]

The first war novel by the author of Life and Fate and a stunningly accurate portrayal of soldierly life written at the beginning of World War II.

Vasily Grossman wrote three novels about the Second World War, each offering a distinct take on what a war novel can be, and each extraordinary. A common set of characters links Stalingrad and Life and Fate, but Stalingrad is not only a moving and exciting story of desperate defense and the turning tide of war, but also a monumental memorial for the countless war dead. Life and Fate, by contrast, is a work of moral and political philosophy as well as a novel, and the deep question it explores is whether or not it is possible to behave ethically in the face of overwhelming violence. The People Immortal is something else entirely. Set during the catastrophic first months of the German invasion of the Soviet Union, this is the tale of an army battalion dispatched to slow the advancing enemy at any cost, with encirclement and annihilation its promised end. A rousing story of resistance, The People Immortal is the novel as weapon in hand.“In the hands of a lesser writer, Grossman’s tales of heroism, of the solidarity between regular soldiers and political commissars, and his romanticized descriptions of Soviet life under Stalin, would be sentimental, except Grossman is self-aware to a fault. He understands that, like the infantrymen and tankers he describes, he’s a soldier, too, only stories are his weapon.” —Elliot Ackerman, The Atlantic

“In the summer and autumn of 1941 Grossman worked as a frontline correspondent for the military newspaper Red Star, narrowly eluding capture. What is so remarkable about the notes he took and the novel that gives them fuller exl¾