Life and Fate

Life and Fate is an epic tale of twentieth-century Russia told through the fate of a single family, the Shaposhnikovs, from the Sunday Times bestselling author of Stalingrad.

Vasily Grossman follows the Shaposhnikov family through the upheaval of twentieth-century Russia as the Battle of Stalingrad approaches. Soldiers, scientists and civilians must negotiate war alongside the ideological tyranny of the Soviet state, making private loyalties and moral choices matters of survival.

Life and Fate combines a sweeping portrait of Soviet society with the intimate consequences of history. Completed in 1960 and confiscated by the KGB, the novel remained unpublished until it was smuggled into the West in 1980. That history gives added force to a book concerned with what happens when political systems attempt to master individual thought, love and conscience.

For readers seeking epic historical fiction about Stalingrad, Soviet Russia, war and totalitarianism, Grossman's novel places a single family's fate inside one of the defining conflicts of the twentieth century — and asks what human freedom can mean when almost every choice is under pressure.

'One of the finest Russian novels of the 20th century' Daily Telegraph

'Compelling... Grossman's portrait is timelessly relevant... Life and Fate is worth all the audience it can find' The Times