A Writer At War

Deemed unfit for service when the Germans invaded in 1941, Vasily Grossman became a special correspondent for Red Star, the Red Army newspaper, observing on the Eastern front with a writer's eye the most pitiless fighting ever known. Grossman witnessed almost all the major events: the appalling defeats and desperate retreats of 1941, the defence of Moscow and fighting in the Ukraine. In August 1942 he was posted to Stalingrad where he remained during four months of brutal street-fighting. He was present at the battle of Kursk, the largest tank engagement in history, and, as the Red Army advanced, he reached Berdichev where his worst fears for his mother and other relations were confirmed. A Jew himself, he undertook the faithful recording of Holocaust atrocities as their extent dawned. His supremely powerful report 'The Hell of Treblinka' was used in evidence at the Nuremberg tribunal. Based on the notebooks in which Grossman gathered his raw material, A Writer at War offers the one outstanding eye-witness account of the war on the Eastern Front and perhaps the best descriptions ever of what Grossman called 'the ruthless truth of war'.

In the summer of 1941, as the Germans invade Russia, newspaper reporter Vasily Grossman is swept to the frontlines, witnessing some of the most savage atrocities in Russian history.

As Grossman follows the Red Army from the defence of Moscow, to the carnage at Stalingrad, to the Nazi genocide in Treblinka, his writings paint a vividly raw and devastating account of Operation Barbarossa during World War Two.
Grossman's notebooks, war diaries, personal correspondence and newspaper articles are meticulously woven into a gripping narrative and provide a piercing look into the life of the author behind recent Sunday Times bestseller Stalingrad.

A Writer at War stands as an unforgettable eyewitness account of the Eastern Front and places Grossman as the leading Soviet voice of 'the ruthless truth of war'.

'A remarkable addition to the literature of 1941 - 1945...a wonderful portrait of the wartime experience of Russia... A worthy memorial to a remarkable man' Sunday Telegraph

Préface
A Writer at War offers the one outstanding eye-witness account of the war on the Eastern Front and perhaps the best descriptions ever of what Grossman called 'the ruthless truth of war'.

Auteur

Vasily Grossman, Edited and Translated by Antony Beevor and Luba Vinogradova