Last summer I read just about every Russian gulag novel I could find: of course the list was topped by Gulag Archipelago and One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich.
Obituary: "Nobel Winner Chronicled Tyranny of Soviet Union"
Alexander I. Solzhenitsyn, 89, the Russian writer and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature whose pitiless and searching chronicles of Soviet tyranny made him a symbol of freedom and the durability of the human spirit, died yesterday in Moscow.
Solzhenitsyn always kind of puzzled me. His story is certainly fascinating; the fact he was able to survive such a long ordeal in the gulag system despite health problems and still come out of it intact enough to research and write accounts as detailed and informative as he did is amazing. I doubt most people would have that strength. I think the surprise in Solzhenitsyn's life was his politics, he still held on to an idealistic view of communism and the 'slavic heritage' that one might expect a gulag survivor to reject.
I wish the translations of his work had been better. They felt as though lacking in some way, and I assume it's a translation problem rather than Solzhenitsyn's style.
Sad news.
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