An Armenian sketchbook

Abstract

After the Soviet government confiscated - or, as Grossman always put it, "arrested" - Life and Fate, he took on the task of revising a literal Russian translation of a long Armenian novel. An Armenian Sketchbook is his account of the two months he spent there. This is by far the most personal and intimate of Grossman's works, endowed with an air of absolute spontaneity, as though he is simply chatting to the reader about his impressions of Armenia - its mountains, its ancient churches, its people - while 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