Synopses & Reviews
For the centenary of the Russian Revolution, a new edition of the Russian Nobelists most accessible novel
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich is an undisputed classic of contemporary literature. First published (in censored form) in the Soviet journal Novy Mir in 1962, it is the story of labor-camp inmate Ivan Denisovich Shukhov as he struggles to maintain his dignity in the face of communist oppression. On every page of this graphic depiction of Ivan Denisovichs struggles, the pain of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyns own decade-long experience in the gulag is apparent—which makes its ultimate tribute to one mans will to triumph over relentless dehumanization all the more moving.
An unforgettable portrait of the entire world of Stalins forced-work camps, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich is one of the most extraordinary literary works to have emerged from the Soviet Union. The first of Solzhenitsyns novels to be published, it forced both the Soviet Union and the West to confront the Soviets human rights record, and the novel was specifically mentioned in the presentation speech when Solzhenitsyn was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1970. Above all, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich establishes Solzhenitsyns stature as “a literary genius whose talent matches that of Dostoevsky, Turgenev, Tolstoy” (Harrison Salisbury, The New York Times).
This unexpurgated, widely acclaimed translation by H. T. Willetts is the only translation authorized by Solzhenitsyn himself.
Review
“One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich yields, more than anything else, a beautiful sense of its author as a Chekhovian figure: simple, free of literary affectation, wholly serious.” —The New Republic
About the Author
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was a Russian novelist, historian, and winner of the 1970 Nobel Prize in Literature. He served as a decorated commander in the Red Army during World War II before he was arrested for anti-Soviet propaganda and sentenced to eight years in a labor camp, where he drew inspiration for his controversial novel One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. Exiled in 1974, he returned to Russia after the dissolution of the Soviet Union and died in Moscow in 2008.