And Quiet Flows the Don

And Quiet Flows the Don is the great monumental novel so favorably compared to Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace. Like the Tolstoy novel, And Quiet Flows the Don is an epic picture of Russian life during a time of crisis and examines it through political, military, romantic, and civilian lenses. It took fourteen years to complete. Earning the Stalin Prize, it became the most-read work of Soviet fiction, selling ten million copies. It even won the Nobel Prize in Literature. The story traces the progress of the cossack Gregor Melekhov from youthful lover to Red Army soldier. Various modern Russian novelists have been hailed as successors to Tolstoy and Dostolevsky but here is the first one who merits the distinction, and who at the same time is modern, original and universal enough in appeal to catch the imagination of the American reading public.