Sascha Welter reviewed A Writer at War by Vasily Semyonovich Grossman
Intense, at times brutal
4 stars
Intense. Sometimes this book is crushing, dark, brutal in Grossman's descriptions of the horrors of war and the Holocaust. Occasionally he is flat and almost bloodlessly repeating hearsay, but most of the times... that feeling of hearing someone who was an actual witness to the times was intentse. All the things he saw and lived through. This huge amount of sincerity, brutal honesty. There were times when I could not continue reading, especially in the evening. I did not enjoy reading this book, even though it is very well written, but it felt right to read this book.
How can the words of Vassily Grossman exist in the same universe as the new perpetrators of racist and far right ideology?