Life and Fate (Russian: Жизнь и судьба), is a 1959 novel by Vasily Grossman, and the author's magnum opus. Technically, it is the second half of the author's conceived two-part book under the same title, but while the first half (the novel For the Right Cause), written during the reign of Joseph Stalin and first published in 1952, expresses loyalty to the regime, Life and Fate sharply criticises Stalinism. Le Monde described it as "the greatest Russian novel of the twentieth century".
Vasily Grossman, a Ukrainian Jew, was a correspondent for the Soviet military paper Krasnaya Zvezda throughout World War II. He spent approximately 1,000 days on the frontlines, roughly 3 of the 4 years of the conflict between the Germans and Russians. He was also author of the novel The People are Immortal. He was one of the first journalists to write about the ethnic cleansing of people in Eastern Europe and he was present at many famous battles. Life and Fate was his “pièce de resistance” and most defining achievement.
Read more about Life And Fate: History of The Manuscript, Historical Context, Main Characters, Plot Summary, Major Themes, Radio Adaption
Famous quotes containing the words life and/or fate:
“Virtue and vice suppose the freedom to choose between good and evil; but what can be the morals of a woman who is not even in possession of herself, who has nothing of her own, and who all her life has been trained to extricate herself from the arbitrary by ruse, from constraint by using her charms?... As long as she is subject to man’s yoke or to prejudice, as long as she receives no professional education, as long as she is deprived of her civil rights, there can be no moral law for her!”
—Flora Tristan (1803–1844)
“I have, as when the sun doth light a storm,
Buried this sigh in wrinkle of a smile;
But sorrow that is couched in seeming gladness
Is like that mirth fate turns to sudden sadness.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)