Description: Friedrich Gorenstein's Redemption is a stark and powerful portrait of humanity caught up in Stalin's police state in the aftermath of World War II. A major work bearing witness to the Holocaust in the Soviet Union, Redemption is an important reckoning with anti-Semitism and Stalinist repression from a significant Soviet Jewish voice.
Brief description: Andrew Bromfield is an acclaimed translator of contemporary Russian writers such as Victor Pelevin and Boris Akunin. He has also translated Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace.
Review Quotes: Redemption is awash with brutal truths, rude awakenings and painful self-discoveries. Gorenstein doesn't make it easy for his reader: His forbidding theme is the aftermath of the Holocaust -- the aftershock of 'ineluctable, planned murder' -- and his protagonist is an unsympathetic young woman. But the darkness is not total; there are numerous glints of light, even pockets of beauty. Gorenstein skillfully crafts scenes, paints landscapes and conveys moods. We move from the shabby elegance of the ball to the snowy streets with their burned-out ruins. We watch with morbid fascination as Sashenka inflicts damage on others and then herself. Punctuating her many trials and errors are searching meditations on suffering and salvation, love and fate.--Malcolm Forbes "Star Tribune"