A 2016 YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults
Finalist
National Book Award winner M. T. Anderson delivers a brilliant and
riveting account of the Siege of Leningrad and the role played by
Russian composer Shostakovich and his Leningrad Symphony.
In September 1941, Adolf Hitler's Wehrmacht surrounded Leningrad in what
was to become one of the longest and most destructive sieges in Western
history--almost three years of bombardment and starvation that
culminated in the harsh winter of 1943-1944. More than a million
citizens perished. Survivors recall corpses littering the frozen
streets, their relatives having neither the means nor the strength to
bury them. Residents burned books, furniture, and floorboards to keep
warm; they ate family pets and--eventually--one another to stay alive.
Trapped between the Nazi invading force and the Soviet government itself
was composer Dmitri Shostakovich, who would write a symphony that
roused, rallied, eulogized, and commemorated his fellow citizens--the
Leningrad Symphony, which came to occupy a surprising place of
prominence in the eventual Allied victory.
This is the true story of a city under siege: the triumph of bravery and
defiance in the face of terrifying odds. It is also a look at the
power--and layered meaning--of music in beleaguered lives. Symphony for
the City of the Dead is a masterwork thrillingly told and impeccably
researched by National Book Award-winning author M. T. Anderson.
