Follows the experiences of a Soviet tank commander in World War II as he fights his way from Siberia to Stalingrad and onward to Berlin The epic sequel to the best-selling Children of the Arbat follows the experiences of a Soviet tank commander in World War II as he fights his way from Siberia to Stalingrad and onward to Berlin. In his long-awaited novel Dust and Ashes, Anatoli Rybakov boldly brings to life the seminal event of the modern era - World War II - from the Russian perspective. As Stalin and Hitler clash, Red Army tanks advance, and the struggle that changed the course of the twentieth century plays out on the battlefields, Rybakov brings his epic story of the Soviet experience to its spectacular conclusion.Heralded by critics as a twentieth-century Tolstoy, Anatoli Rybakov won international acclaim in 1988 as the first Soviet novelist to describe - with shocking candor and poignancy - life under Stalins brutal dictatorship. Suppressed by the Soviet Union for over twenty years, his Children of the Arbat presented a masterful psychological portrait of Stalin and his impact on a circle of young friends living in Moscows intellectual and artistic center, the Arbat. Rybakov continued his story of the children of the revolution in Fear, which recounted a once-hopeful generations descent into terror during the era of Stalins purges.Dust and Ashes, the trilogys final volume, is the epics most dramatic. Spanning the years 1937 to 1943, Rybakov picks up the narrative as Stalins egomania undermines the Red Army - just when the Russian people face the Nazi onslaught. Rybakov returns to the Arbat circle and follows his central figure; Sasha Pankratov, who emerges from despairing exile to join the armys tank corps. Thrust into the most savage and crucial fighting, Sasha is both participant and witness to cruelty and bravery amid senseless slaughter. And - at the height of the battle - he reunites with his lost love, Varya.
