An Armenian Sketchbook (New York Review Books Classics)

An NYRB Classics Original

Few writers had to confront as many of the last centurys mass tragedies as Vasily Grossman, who wrote with terrifying clarity about the Shoah, the Battle of Stalingrad, and the Terror Famine in the Ukraine. An Armenian Sketchbook, however, shows us a very different Grossman, notable for his tenderness, warmth, and sense of fun.

After the Soviet government confiscatedor, as Grossman always put it, arrestedLife and Fate, he took on the task of revising a literal Russian translation of a long Armenian novel. The novel was of little interest to him, but he needed money and was evidently glad of an excuse to travel to Armenia. An Armenian Sketchbook is his account of the two months he spent there.

This is by far the most personal and intimate of Grossmans works, endowed with an air of absolute spontaneity, as though he is simply chatting to the reader about his impressions of Armeniaits mountains, its ancient churches, its peoplewhile also examining his own thoughts and moods. A wonderfully human account of travel to a faraway place, An Armenian Sketchbook also has the vivid appeal of a self-portrait.