Life and Fate: The Complete Series (Dramatised)
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4.3 • 12 Ratings
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- £10.99
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- £10.99
Publisher Description
Kenneth Branagh stars in BBC Radio 4's ambitious eight-hour dramatisation of Life and Fate, Vasily Grossman's epic masterpiece set during the Battle of Stalingrad. This powerful work, completed in 1960, charts the fate of both a nation and a family in the turmoil of war. Its comparison of Stalinism with Nazism was considered by Soviet authorities to be so dangerous that the KGB placed the manuscript under arrest and Grossman was informed his book would not be published for at least 200 years.
Having been a household name as one of Russia's most distinguished war correspondents, Grossman died aged 58 - the banning of his book hastening the end of his life - and he would never know the fate of his masterpiece: smuggled out of the Soviet Union on microfilm, to freedom and eventual publication in the West. Today it is increasingly hailed as the most important Russian novel of the 20th century.
Customer Reviews
Moving, frightening and amazing
Firstly the apple review is misleading as this audiobook was produced in 2011.
This is a great dramatisation of life in soviet Russia during the battle of Stalingrad. From the highest general to the lowliest soldier, Grossman leaves no stone unturned. His pen crosses the lives of Novikov the tank commander, Krymov the commissar who knew Trotsky, Arbachuk in the Gulag, Shtrum the scientist, Anna the Jew in a concentration camp and many more.
Never will you hear a greater ode to the total devastation of war and political madness surrounding a single family in Stalingrad.
Excellently recorded and performed, Life and Fate is important a recording as it is a memorial.
Do download and enjoy. You will not regret it.