The novel tells the story of Ivan Grigoryevich, who has returned to Russia after thirty years in the Gulag. After short and unsatisfying visits to familiar places and persons in Moscow and Leningrad, the hero settles in a southern provincial town where he briefly establishes a new life with a war widow. Ivan Grigoryevich eventually returns to his boyhood home on the Black Sea, where he is finally able to come to terms with the inhumanity of the new Russian regime.

"First Published in 1998, Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company."

As the collection progresses, it delves into the metaphorical depth that rivers hold in the human psyche. Poems explore rivers as conduits of time, mirroring the ceaseless flow of life itself. The verses unravel the symbolic significance of rivers as witnesses to history, bearers of tales, and reflections of the human journey. Readers are invited to contemplate the interplay between the fluidity of rivers and the transient nature of existence. Ecological awareness forms a vital thread within the anthology, with poems that delve into the delicate balance between rivers and the ecosystems they sustain. The poets weave environmental narratives, shedding light on the fragility of river ecosystems and the urgent need for conservation. These verses become a call to action, encouraging readers to become stewards of the lifeblood that rivers represent on a planetary scale. Cultural and spiritual dimensions are also explored in the anthology, with poems that draw inspiration from the myths, folklore, and rituals associated with rivers across diverse cultures. The poets unravel the sacredness of rivers, the deities that guard their waters, and the rituals that communities perform to honor these flowing entities. Through these poems, readers are invited to witness the spiritual significance that rivers hold in the hearts of humankind.

A New York Review Books Original Everything Flows is Vasily Grossman’s final testament, written after the Soviet authorities suppressed his masterpiece, Life and Fate. The main story is simple: released after thirty years in the Soviet camps, Ivan Grigoryevich must struggle to find a place for himself in an unfamiliar world. But in a novel that seeks to take in the whole tragedy of Soviet history, Ivan’s story is only one among many. Thus we also hear about Ivan’s cousin, Nikolay, a scientist who never let his conscience interfere with his career, and Pinegin, the informer who got Ivan sent to the camps. Then a brilliant short play interrupts the narrative: a series of informers steps forward, each making excuses for the inexcusable things that he did—inexcusable and yet, the informers plead, in Stalinist Russia understandable, almost unavoidable. And at the core of the book, we find the story of Anna Sergeyevna, Ivan’s lover, who tells about her eager involvement as an activist in the Terror famine of 1932–33, which led to the deaths of three to five million Ukrainian peasants. Here Everything Flows attains an unbearable lucidity comparable to the last cantos of Dante’s Inferno.