RIP Александр Исаевич Солженицын
Alexandr Isayevich Solzhenitzyn, Nobel Prize-winning writer, teacher, soldier, and Soviet dissident, has died on August 3, aged 89, in Russia. He is buried in the Donskoi Monastery, Moscow. He was born in Kislovodsk, Russia in 1918. His famous works include One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, based on his time in a labour camp, and The Gulag Archipelago, for which he was exiled in 1974. He went to prison for making negative comments about Stalin in a letter to a friend. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1970.
From my library:
Whether you read them for the history or the psychological terror of the times, these are well worth your time. He published dozens of books, including fiction, non-fiction, short stories, poetry, essays, reflections, and an autobiography.
A friend at LibraryThing tells me:
"His documentary novel, The First Circle, will be re-released next spring with an additional 6-8 chapters included which were originally censored out by the former USSR. I'm surprised, considering The First Circle's blatant condemnation of the former Soviet gov't (allegorizing the regime as one of Dante's first circles of Hell?) was ever published in the former Soviet Union in the first place; so these half dozen or so re-inserted chapters must be incredibly damning and should make for an even more compelling read. Can't wait till it comes out.
Lola
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