Alpine Ballad

Towards the end of World War II, a Belarusian soldier and an Italian girl escape from a Nazi concentration camp. The soldier wonders if he should get rid of the girl; she is a burden and is slowing him down. However, he cannot bring himself to abandon her in the snowy wilderness. Somewhere along the way, the two develop feelings for each other, but their love is not destined to grow beyond the edge of the mountains. Yet their bond cannot be denied, and in the end it proves stronger than death itself.

From the master of psychological narrative whose firsthand experience with World War II enabled him to re-create the ordeal on pages of his books, Alpine Ballad is Vasil Bykau's most heartfelt story. Bykau sends a powerful message to his readers: human values can be extrapolated and in the context of war people can still uphold their humanity.

An altruistic, philanthropic project of Glagoslav Publications, Alpine Ballad is coming out as a gesture of peace and a reminder to all of the human cost of wars that ransack our planet to this day.

Translated from Belarusian by Mikalai Khilo. The previous translations of Alpine Ballad were based on the Soviet-censored Russian version of the original manuscript.