The ruthless and courageous writer Vasily Grossman revealed the piercing, hopeless truth about the lives of people and the world in his epic novel “Life and Fate.” The best heroes of this book inevitably find themselves caught between two fires: fighting fascism, they defend the Stalinist system—but how substantially different are a German camp and the Lubyanka? People fight for freedom and justice with their last strength, yet will these ideals arrive after victory? The story of a war of liberation fought for new slavery emerged from Grossman’s pen despite caution and the instinct for self-preservation: half a century ago, the novel was arrested, shortening the author's life. Today, his book, which has gained worldwide fame, reads as a harsh anthem to genuine freedom—freedom of spirit, the preservation of which forms the basis of human existence, while its loss means inevitable death.