Deemed unfit for service when the Germans invaded in 1941 Vasily Grossman became a special correspondent for Red Star the Red Army newspaper observing on the Eastern front with a writer's eye the most pitiless fighting ever known Grossman witnessed almost all the major events the appalling defeats & desperate retreats of 1941 the defence of Moscow & fighting in the Ukraine In August 1942 he was posted to Stalingrad where he remained during four months of brutal street-fighting He was present at the battle of Kursk the largest tank engagement in history & as the Red Army advanced he reached Berdichev where his worst fears for his mother & other relations were confirmed A Jew himself he undertook the faithful recording of Holocaust atrocities as their extent dawned His supremely powerful report ' The Hell of Treblinka' was used in evidence at the Nuremberg tribunal Based on the notebooks in which Grossman gathered his raw material A Writer at War offers the one outstanding eye-witness account of the war on the Eastern Front & perhaps the best descriptions ever of what Grossman called 'the ruthless truth of war'