One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (Signet Classics)

Highlighted by a new introduction by Yevgeny Yevtushenko, a brutal depiction of life in a Stalinist camp and a moving tribute to man's triumph over relentless dehumanization in a novel said to be one of the most outspoken and significant literary documents ever to come out of Soviet Russia. Reprint.

Solzhenitsyn's first book, this economical, relentless novel is one of the most forceful artistic indictments of political oppression in the Stalin-era Soviet Union. The simply told story of a typical, grueling day of the titular character's life in a labor camp in Siberia, is a modern classic of Russian literature and quickly cemented Solzhenitsyn's international reputation upon publication in 1962. It is painfully apparent that Solzhenitsyn himself spent time in the gulags--he was imprisoned for nearly a decade as punishment for making derogatory statements about Stalin in a letter to a friend.