A book judged so dangerous in the Soviet Union that not only the manuscript but the ribbons on which it had been typed were confiscated by the state, Life and Fate is an epic tale of World War II and a profound reckoning with the dark forces that dominated the twentieth century.

Interweaving a transfixing account of the battle of Stalingrad with the story of a single middle-class family, the Shaposhnikovs, scattered by fortune from Germany to Siberia, Vasily Grossman fashions an immense, intricately detailed tapestry depicting a time of almost unimaginable horror and even stranger hope.

Life and Fate juxtaposes bedrooms and snipers’ nests, scientific laboratories and the Gulag, taking us deep into the hearts and minds of characters ranging from a boy on his way to the gas chambers to Hitler and Stalin themselves.

This novel of unsparing realism and visionary moral intensity is one of the supreme achievements of modern Russian literature.

瓦西里·格罗斯曼 Васи́лий Гро́ссман (1905 - 1964)，苏俄记者、作家。1905年生于乌克兰别尔基切夫，早年毕业于莫斯科大学数学物理系，当过化学工程师，1930年代投身写作行列，得到高尔基、巴别尔等文坛大家赏识，入选苏联国家作协。第二次世界大战期间作为《红星报》战 地记者随军四年，大量报道莫斯科、库斯克、斯大林格勒和柏林等地前线战况，是揭露纳粹德国死亡集中营真相的第一人。战后发表小说《人民是不朽的》《为了正义的事业》等。1960年完成长篇小说《生活与命运》，手稿被苏联当局抄没并禁止出版。1964年格罗斯曼因癌症病逝。1974 年，在安德烈·萨哈罗夫、弗拉基米尔·沃伊诺维奇等人帮助下，手稿被拍摄在缩微胶卷上偷运出苏联。1980 年代初，《生活与命运》在欧美各国相继问世，1988年在苏联出版。

译者 力冈 (1926 - 1997)，俄苏文学翻译家，1953年毕业于哈尔滨外国语专门学校俄语专业，后任教于安徽师范大学，翻译了《静静的顿河》《安娜·卡列尼娜》等近七百万字俄苏文学作品。