A daring literary masterpiece and winner of the National Book Award In this magnificent work
of fiction acclaimed author William T. Vollmann turns his trenchant eye on the authoritarian
cultures of Germany and the USSR in the twentieth century to render a mesmerizing perspective
on human experience during wartime. Through interwoven narratives that paint a composite
portrait of these two battling leviathans and the monstrous age they defined Europe Central
captures a chorus of voices both real and fictional- a young German who joins the SS to fight
its crimes two generals who collaborate with the enemy for different reasons the Soviet
composer Dmitri Shostakovich and the Stalinist assaults upon his work and life.
