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In this magnificent work of fiction, William T. Vollmann turns his trenchant eye to the authoritarian cultures of Germany and the USSR in the twentieth century. The result is a daring and mesmerizing perspective on human actions during wartime.

Assembling a composite portrait of these two warring leviathans and the terrible age they defined, the narrative intertwines experiences both real and fictional: a young German who joins the SS to reveal its secrets and stop its crimes, two generals who collaborate with the enemy for different reasons and with different results, the Soviet composer Dmitri Shostakovich laboring under Stalinist oppression. This last story is perhaps Vollmann's signature accomplishment in this volume. Also explored are the fates of artists and poets ranging from Kathe Kollwitz and Anna Akhmatova to Marina Tsvetaeva and Van Cliburn.

William T. Vollman is the author of a memoir, several works of nonfiction, and ten novels, including Europe Central, which won the National Book Award. He has also written four collections of stories, including The Atlas, which won the PEN Center USA West Award for Fiction. Rising Up and Rising Down was a finalist for the 2003 National Book Critics Circle Award. His 1996 story collection, The Atlas, won the PEN Center USA/West Award. His work has been published in the New Yorker, Esquire, Harper's, and other publications.

Ralph Cosham (1936-2014), a.k.a. Geoffrey Howard, was a British journalist who changed careers to become a narrator and screen and stage actor. He performed in more than one hundred professional theatrical roles, and several of his narrations were named Audio Best of the Year by Publishers Weekly. He won seven AudioFile Earphones Awards, and in 2013 he won the coveted Audie Award for Best Mystery Narration for his reading of Louise Penny's The Beautiful Mystery.