{"product_id":"the-people-immortal-by-vasily-grossman-9781529414745","title":"The People Immortal","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eOne of Grossman's three great war novels - alongside \u003ci\u003eLife and Fate\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eStalingrad\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe People Immortal\u003c\/i\u003e is a remarkable novel that illuminates the terrible realities of Barbarossa and the banal horror of warfare with incomparable understanding and insight,\" Jonathan Dimbleby.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\"There are always good reasons for reading Grossman, but few times are as resonant as our own. As a proud son of Ukraine, steeped in Russian culture, Grossman was both a chronicler of the Soviet Union's greatest victories and a clear-eyed investigator of some of its darkest crimes.\" John Thornhill, \u003ci\u003eFinancial Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eSet during the catastrophic defeats of the war's first months, it tracks a Red Army regiment that wins a minor victory in eastern Belorussia but fails to exploit this success. A battalion is then entrusted with the task of slowing the German advance, and eventually encircled, before ultimately breaking out and joining with the rest of the Soviet forces.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eGrossman's descriptions of the natural world - and his characters' relationship to it - are both vivid and unexpected, as are his memorable character sketches: eleven-year-old Lionya is determined to hang on to his toy revolver as he walks a long distance behind German lines; his defiant grandmother slaps a German officer in the face and is shot; Kotenko, a fiercely anti-Soviet peasant who initially welcomes the Germans, hangs himself in despair when they treat him with contempt; and Semion Ignatiev, a womanizer and gifted storyteller, turns out to be the boldest and most resourceful of the rank-and-file soldiers.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eGrossman spent most of the war years close to the front line. But \u003ci\u003eThe People Immortal\u003c\/i\u003e is far from being mere morale-boosting propaganda. On the contrary, as letters included in this volume make clear, it was read as a textbook, and as a work of military education. This edition includes not only the unredacted novel itself, translated here for the first time since 1946, but also a wealth of background material.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eTranslated from the Russian by Robert and Elizabeth Chandler.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Hachette Aotearoa New Zealand","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47537119592684,"sku":"9781529414745","price":37.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/77870c52d857300f89e4ceb5b94f9495.jpg?v=1776901881","url":"https:\/\/bookhero.co.nz\/products\/the-people-immortal-by-vasily-grossman-9781529414745","provider":"Book Hero","version":"1.0","type":"link"}