Vasily Grossman
Robert Chandler, Janet Suzman
Vasily Grossman is famous for his masterpiece Life and Fate and his writing as a reporter embedded within the Red Army, particularly for his powerful report on Treblinka. Robert Chandler (his translator and editor of The Road) revealed to us Grossman not only as a heroic witness, but also as a supreme artist, focusing on Grossman’s dialogue with another great short story writer, Isaak Babel.
Janet Suzman read from three of Grossman’s recently published short stories.
Robert Chandler is the main English translator of both Vasily Grossman and Andrei Platonov. He has also compiled three anthologies for Penguin Classics: of Russian short stories, of Russian magic tales and, with Boris Dralyuk and Irina Mashinski, The Penguin Book of Russian Poetry. He is a co-translator of three volumes of memoirs and stories by Teffi. His short biography of Alexander Pushkin is published by Pushkin Press. He runs a monthly translation workshop at Pushkin House (Bloomsbury).
