Red Sky at Noon
The author is a well-known historian who has previously written factual works about Stalin and Catherine the Great. This is the third novel in the Moscow Trilogy following on from Sashenka and One Night in Winter and takes place in Stalingrad, Russia, in 1942. Stalin, with his daughter, Svetlana, features as a major character in the novel, but the main character is Benya Golden who also featured in the first two novels. His position as the story begins is as a political prisoner in the Gulags suffering horrendous conditions.
As Russia continued to put battalions into the war against the Germans and the Italians, Stalin gave orders for the criminals and political prisoners from the Gulags to also be formed into battalions and sent to the front. Benya is one of those who is given a horse and sent to join the cavalry. The descriptions of torture, injuries and death are horrific, painting a graphic picture of life at the front. Against this background Benya forms relationships with his fellow soldiers and prisoners and with the medical staff who try to help them. He is also able to have a romantic relationship with an Italian nurse when he becomes a prisoner of war. The book was the winner of the Political Novel of the Year and was also nominated for the Orwell Prize.
