Q&A …

… The Best Books on Tales of Soviet Russia | A Five Books Interview. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

During the last ten years [Vasily] Grossman has become a great deal better known, but the people drawing attention to him have, by and large, been historians like Antony Beevor, or people whose interest is largely political – Martin Kettle, John Lloyd. So the focus has been very much on Grossman as a historical witness: Grossman and Stalingrad, Grossman and the Shoah. There’s nothing wrong in that and I’m very grateful, but Grossman is a very, very fine writer, irrespective of history, and in The Road above all. The Road is a collection of ‘late stories’ written after the confiscation of Life and Fate and these are wonderful stories.