"If you have read Life and Fate by Grossman, you will probably want to urgently read Stalingrad as well. If you haven't, it is certain that when you read this novel, not only will you discover that you love its heroes and want to stay with them - that you need them in your life as much as you need your own family and loved ones - but in the end, you will want to read it again." (The Daily Telegraph)

In April 1942, Hitler and Mussolini plan the massive attack on the Eastern Front, which will culminate in the greatest battle in human history, the Battle of Stalingrad. In Stalingrad, Grossman pays tribute not to the Generals but to the ordinary lieutenants, the ordnance officers, the conscripts, the messengers, the peasants, the farmers, the workers.
Stalingrad, the first part of the fictional diptych, completed with Life and Fate, is a huge fresco not only of war, but of life as a whole. Harsh and tender, lyrical and epic, it expresses the power of the human spirit."