Michel Krielaars (b. 1961) is editor-in-chief of the books supplement of NRC Handelsblad. Before that he was a correspondent in Russia for many years. He has published several novels as well as the prizewinning Chekhov’s Spectacles. Travels through Russia, in which he looks at Russia through the eyes of Anton Chekhov.
(Atlas Contact, 2017, 344 pages)
Jewish-Russian authors Isaak Babel and Vasily Grossman worked under oppressive conditions during Stalin’s Great Terror. Initially optimistic of the future for post-revolution Russia, and believing that mild criticism of the Soviet system was possible, they both had to confront the appalling reality of Stalinism in the end.
