The phrase "a grim past" is correct and usable in written English.
It can be used to describe a history or background that is dark, sad, or filled with negative experiences.
Example: "The town has a grim past, marked by years of conflict and hardship."
Alternatives: "a dark history" or "a troubled background."
But it is also a reminder of a grim past and a complicated future.
The country has put behind it a grim past as a basket-case that needed repeated rescuing by the IMF.
Detroit is no ordinary city; it is recovering from a grim past and undergoing a startling transformation.
Ms. Yolen has chosen to take her young heroine, Hannah, not to a make-believe land but to a grim past - pushing her back in time to become a Jewish teen-ager in the midst of the Holocaust.
Christopher Walken appears to have always been Tarantino's top choice to play Captain Koons, the Vietnam vet who appears to young Butch in a notable flashback scene to hand over a gold watch with a grim past.
HAMA, Syria — In this city that bears the scars of one of the modern Middle East's bloodiest episodes, the revolt against President Bashar al-Assad has begun to help Syrians imagine life after dictatorship as it forges new leaders, organizes its own defense and reckons with a grim past in an uncertain experiment that showcases the forces that could end Mr. Assad's rule.
Perhaps because the addiction and rehab narrative has become the boy-meets-girl of the cultural marketplace in the new millennium, Mr. Lombardo endows Cody with a spectacularly grim past: procuring johns for his prostitute mother before he was 10, trading sex for drugs just a few years later, only to be kicked onto the street after his mother discovered he was getting it on with one of her guys.
He was scrawny, spotted purple, with AIDS-related cancer all over his mouth and lungs, a flash from the grim past.
More than just a retelling of the Harkis' grim past and troubling present, The Harkis is a resonant reflection on how children bear responsibility for the choices their parents make, how personal identity is shaped by the impersonal forces of history, and how violence insinuates itself into every facet of human life.
Although the once elite institution, complete with a swimming pool and a gymnasium, has remained untouched since its closing, the hospital's grim past has driven many to experience a haunting presence at the abandoned site.
But as South Africa begins a brave experiment to deal with its grim past, it is still in fact unclear what it is trying to achieve.Nelson Mandela, who addressed the church service on February 13th, told the commissioners their task was to help South Africans "come to terms with the past in ways which will enable us to face the future as a united nation at peace with itself".
