Stalingrad 1943-2013

From the set of the coming 3D IMAX movie "Stalingrad".

In three weeks it will be 70 years since the German surrender at Stalingrad. I had a small role in the translation of a book about the battle of Stalingrad, A Writer at War by Antony Beevor and Luba Vinogradova.

A Writer at War is a book about the author of the epic Stalingrad novel Life and Fate, Vasily Grossman. Le Monde called Life and Fate "the greatest Russian novel of the twentieth century". Comparisons have also been made abroad to War and Peace. In Sweden, however, I do not recall that the release of the new Swedish edition of Life and Fate resulted in much publicity. But on December 27, Sweden´s leading newspaper published this article by Roger Fjellström that describes the tragic and amazing story behind the manuscript that became Life and Fate.

Well, better late than never. And I suppose the same thing can be said about the making of the answer to Oliver Stone´s "JFK". The answer is called, like the book it is based on, "The Kennedy Detail". The filming will start in March and the director is my Californian relative Stephen Gyllenhaal. I am almost as keen to watch the coming Russian 3D and IMAX movie "Stalingrad", although I am no fan of 3D.

P.S. You might want to read what I have written about the German Stalingrad posters in Norway, in case you have not already read that post.