Here in the Irish Times is a clear, comprehensive introduction to a new hardback edition of LIFE AND FATE by the historian Polly Jones. I agree with nearly every word. My only serious regret is that she refers to the short stories Grossman wrote in his last three years as "minor works." They are minor only in length. "The Road" is a highly compressed version of "Life and Fate” - the Stalingrad campaign seen from the perspective of an Italian mule, dragging an amunition cart across Europe. "The Dog" - an account of an unexpectedly tender relationship between the first dog to be sent up into space and a hard-headed rationalist scientist in charge of the programme - shows us a very different, almost shamanistic Grossman. And "Mama" is one of Grossman's supreme masterpieces. Based on the real life story of a young orphan girl adopted by Nikolay Yezhov (the NKVD boss at the height of Stalin's Purges), this can help one at least begin to understand how many Russians still manage to identify both with Stalin's victims and with his executioners. These stories, and much else, are included in THE ROAD (Vintage Classics and NYRB Classics).
https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/vasily-grossman-s-life-and-fate-so-much-more-than-a-20th-century-war-and-peace-1.4849829
All the best, Robert
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