“Аn Armenian Sketchbook” by Vasily Grossman was included in top 12 non-fiction books of 2013 issued by Eileen Battersby, literary critic of Тhe Irish Times.

“Just when life could not be worse – the KGB had confiscated the manuscript of Love and Fate, his marriage had collapsed and he had discovered he had cancer – Vasily Grossman accepted an invitation to travel to Armenia to retranslate an Armenian novel. He went, without a word of Armenian, and wrote this travelogue that soars with life and humour,” says the review published by the Irish Times.