My Father’S Letters /H

Book Title: My Father’S Letters /H
ISBN: 9781783785285
By Author(s):MEMORIAL
By Publisher:GRANTA
Format:HC

A profoundly moving and historical recordletters sent by sixteen fathers imprisoned in the Gulag camps to their children during the 1930s1950s.

They will live as human beings and die as human beings; and in this alone lies mans eternal and bitter victory over all the grandiose and inhuman forces that ever have been or will be. Vasily Grossman,Life and Fate

Between the 1930s and 1950s, millions of people were sent to the Gulag in the Soviet Union.My Fathers Letterstells the stories of sixteen menmostly members of the intelligentsia, and loyal Soviet subjectswho were imprisoned in the Gulag camps, through the letters they sent back to their wives and children. Here are letters illustrated by fathers keen to educate their children in science and natural history; the tragic missives of a former military man convinced that the terrible mistake of his arrest will be rectified; the letter stitched on a bedsheet with a fishbone and smuggled out of a maximum security camp.My Fathers Lettersis an immediate source of life in prison during Stalins Great Terror. Almost none of the men writing these letters survived.

My Fathers Lettersis well presented and deeply moving. The translation is fluent and all the necessary background information is clearly provided. Some passages conjure up the life of an individual familyand of an entire culturewith heart-breaking vividness. Robert Chandler

Astoundingly, these stories are not miserable. Yes, the men mention their inadequate shelter, clothing and food, but the overwhelming impact is the expression of their love for their families…My Fathers Lettersis beautifully produced. Vin Arthey,Scotsman