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Stalingrad
- Narrated by: Elliot Levey, Leighton Pugh
- Length: 37 hrs and 13 mins
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Stalingrad
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Summary
Brought to you by Penguin.
The Sunday Times best seller and now a major Radio 4 drama.
In April 1942, Hitler and Mussolini plan the huge offensive on the Eastern Front that will culminate in the greatest battle in human history.
Hundreds of miles away, Pyotr Vavilov receives his call-up papers and spends a final night with his wife and children in the hut that is his home. As war approaches, the Shaposhnikov family gathers for a meal: despite her age, Alexandra will soon become a refugee, Tolya will enlist in the reserves, Vera, a Nurse, will fall in love with a wounded pilot and Viktor Shtrum will receive a letter from his doomed mother which will haunt him forever.
The war will consume the lives of a huge cast of characters - lives which express Grossman’s grand themes of the nation and the individual, nature’s beauty and war’s cruelty, love and separation.
For months, Soviet forces are driven back inexorably by the German advance eastward, and eventually Stalingrad is all that remains between the invaders and victory. The city stands on a cliff top by the Volga River. The battle for Stalingrad - a maelstrom of violence and firepower - will reduce it to ruins. But it will also be the cradle of a new sense of hope.
Stalingrad is a magnificent novel not only of war but of all human life: its subjects are mothers and daughters, husbands and brothers, generals, nurses, political officers, steelworkers, tractor girls. It is tender, epic and a testament to the power of the human spirit.
Critic reviews
"One of the great novels of the 20th century, and now published in English for the first time." (Observer)
"A gripping panorama of the human experience." (Kenneth Branagh)
"You will not only discover that you love his characters 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 that at the end...you will want to read it again." (Daily Telegraph)
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What listeners say about Stalingrad
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- C
- 21-09-23
Classic but also thrilling
Robert Chandler's wonderful translation is vivid and mesmerizing with some of the most amazingly written passages I have heard. Well worth it!
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- bradley
- 23-11-22
epic journey
I felt it was written for the time and got lost a few times while moving around Stalingrad but over all a great book
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Tracy H.
- 03-04-21
Top Historical Novel
A modern classic. Narrative really puts the reader into the centre of war. Shocking yet human.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Billy the squid
- 12-03-24
Masterpiece of war literature.
The comparison is often made, because it’s true. Vasily Grossman is the mid 20th century Tolstoy. Life and Fate is his War and Peace, and this is the first book, or prologue I suppose, but prologue does it an injustice. It’s a towering, complex, and complete work in its own right. Grossman is a soldier, a journalist, a writer and a poet, all first rate. Also find his collection of short stories called ‘The Road’.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Chris N.
- 11-08-20
Why can't anyone else write like the Russians?
The narrator is good but this masterpiece deserves a Colin Firth or a Juliet Stephenson.
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2 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- s gilst
- 08-09-21
Tour de Force
A wonderful tour de force of the second world war for the fight for Stalingrad I was hooked and now so sorry it's come to an end!! If you haven't read/heard it you're in for a special treat. Enjoy!!
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Stacy
- 22-02-21
The “War & Peace” of the Twentieth Century
“Stalingrad” and “Life& Fate” are two masterpieces of the 2nd World War by Vassily Grossman. Starting when Hitler disavows his pact with Stalin and invades Russia in the beIief that Germany will triumph within a matter of weeks, the novel covers the following years of war, destruction and bravery. Grossman was present as a reporter at Stalingrad, and his writes in vivid detail, with so many characters that the reader comes to care about that, even after 900 pages, you can’t bear it to stop. Which brings me on to “Life & Fate”. There is no Audible version of this masterpiece: I can play hope that a reading is on its way, I hope also by Elliott Levey, whose reading is pitch-perfect.
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4 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Amazon Customer
- 18-04-21
A great listen
A captivating listen and a Tolstoy-esque epic. Little of the book is about the battle itself, but rather the foreboding of the coming battle, the effects of the inhabitants lives, and the sacrifices they endure. I look forward to Life and Fate and how that an unabridged version will be released.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance2 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Schlegel sister
- 05-10-20
Disappointing narrator
Vasily Grossman is a magnificent writer and Stalingrad is the essential prequel to Life and Fate. It really deserves a better narrator, the reading is dull and the pronunciation of Russian names very poor. It would be great if Stalingrad + Life and Fate were available as a pair, read by someone with the versatility and depth of Anton Lesser.
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2 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Gerry
- 01-02-22
Great listen
this book taught me some things I didn't know about Stalingrd
narration is very good
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