Virgin Soil Upturned, novel written by the renowned Russian writer Mikhail Sholokhov in Malayalam translated by M R Chandrasekharan. Sholokhov is one of the most popular Russian novelists and winner of the 1965 Nobel Prize in Literature.

The scene is set in a small Cossack village; but the fate of his characters is the fate of a whole nation undergoing the greatest social revolution in its history. A process of change had been set afoot that was to spread into every corner of Cossack life. Outworn traditions and habits were swept aside, personalities and ideas that had taken generations to form were either broken or made anew and all this in the face of bitter opposition from those who could not or would not change. With a telling humanity Sholokhov depicts the faults and strivings, the suffering and laughter both of the fighters for progress with whom he himself has such deep ties, and their opponents.