A. Anatoli (Kuznetsov) was born in Kyiv in 1929. After training in
ballet and acting and working as a carpenter and builder, Anatoli
succeeded in forging a career as a writer. His books were heavily
censored by the Soviet authorities but they were very successful,
selling a total of about seven million copies in the Soviet Union,
and were translated into more than thirty languages. Most famous
was Babi Yar, published in Russian in 1966.
On the day the Soviet Army invaded Czechoslovakia in 1968, Anatoli
made a decision to leave the Soviet Union. He photographed all his
manuscripts, both the unpublished volumes and the originals of
censored works. The K.G.B. refused him permission to travel abroad
and demanded that he collaborate with them as an informer. This he
pretended to agree to, writing a fictitious report to convince
them. He then received permission to travel to London for fourteen
days to gather material for a book about Lenin. Arriving in London
on 24 July 1969, with the film of his manuscripts hidden in the
lining of his jacket, Anatoli evaded his companion and sought
asylum. He renounced the surname Kuznetsov, declaring his former
self to be 'a cowardly and conformist writer'.
The smuggled photographic films of Babi Yar provided him with the
text for the first uncensored edition of the book to come out in
English, published in 1970 by Jonathan Cape. Anatoli took the
decision to make visible the censorship of his work, revealing the
fascinating editorial history of the book on the page - censored
parts appear in bold and later additions are shown in square
brackets. Anatoli died in 1979. He is buried in Highgate Cemetery.
Read it and weep... Nothing I have read about that barbaric time
has been as affecting as this gripping, disturbing book - rightly
hailed a masterpiece
*Daily Mail*
Babi Yar is one of the classic accounts of life under Nazi rule in
occupied Europe and a depiction of man's inhumanity to man... [a]
masterpiece
*New Statesman*
A masterpiece . . . Every bit the peer of the canonical works of
witness [such as] Anne Frank's diary . . . Wiesel's Night . . .
Solzhenityn's Gulag Archipelago
*The Atlantic*
Absolutely stunning. A raw, devastating account of one of the
greatest tragedies of WW2. Babi Yar provides a painfully intimate
look at life during the Nazi occupation in Ukraine through the eyes
of one resilient young boy. Told in poetic yet unflinching prose,
this compelling book should be necessary reading for anyone looking
to not only understand Ukrainian history, but humanity
*Erin Litteken*
Moving and shaking in a way that links it with the works of
Solzhenitsyn
*Times Literary Supplement*
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