Brigitte Jaques-Wajeman discovered Vasily Grossman’s novel Life and Fate more than twenty years ago and has wanted to bring it to the stage ever since. The novel, finished in 1959 and banned from publication, depicts the disastrous Soviet regime, daring to compare it with the Nazi regime and the extermination of the Jewish people. Vasily Grossman drew on these two great tragedies of the 20th century to create one of that century’s greatest novels. He shows us how terror affects his characters, and above all, how their paralysing desire for submission kills off all resistance. Servitude is the major theme of this novel, the narrative thread that guides us through its world. Now, in the 21st century, when lies and terror are once more features of life in Russia, Life and Fate is astonishingly relevant. Grossman helps us understand what is happening right before our eyes today.