num_pages: 811
description: 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. 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 expose its crimes, two generals who collaborate with the enemy for different reasons, the Soviet composer Dmitri Shostakovich laboring under Stalinist oppression. Through these and other lives, Vollmann offers a daring and mesmerizing perspective on human actions during wartime.
language: English
title: Europe Central
titlecomplete: Europe Central
characters: Käthe Kollwitz, Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, Fanya Kaplan, Hilde Benjamin, Kurt Gerstein, Andrey Vlasov, Nadezhda Krupskaya, Roman Karmen, Dmitri Shostakovich, Friedrich Paulus
genres: Germany, American, Russia, Historical Fiction, Historical, Novels, Literature, War, Fiction, World War II
ratings_count: 2818
places: Germany, Russia, Berlin, Stalingrad, USSR, Eastern Europe, Dresden, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Leningrad, USSR
awards: awardedAt: 1104566400000
name: National Book Award
category: Fiction, awardedAt: 1104566400000
name: California Book Award
category: Fiction (Gold), awardedAt: 1104566400000
name: National Book Critics Circle Award
category: Fiction, awardedAt: 1388563200000
name: Preis der Leipziger Buchmesse
category: Übersetzung, awardedAt: 1325404800000
name: Βραβείο Λογοτεχνικής Μετάφρασης Αγγλόφωνης Λογοτεχνίας ΕΙΛΜ
publisher: Penguin