One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich: (50th Anniversary Edition) (Signet Classics) - Softcover

Solzhenitsyn, Alexander

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0451531043 ISBN 13: 9780451531049

Publisher: Signet, 2008

Synopsis

The first published novel from the controversial Nobel Prize winning Russian author of The Gulag Archipelago.

In the madness of World War II, a dutiful Russian soldier is wrongfully convicted of treason and sentenced to ten years in a Siberian labor camp. So begins this masterpiece of modern Russian fiction, a harrowing account of a man who has conceded to all things evil with dignity and strength.
 
First published in 1962, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich is considered one of the most significant works ever to emerge from Soviet Russia. Illuminating a dark chapter in Russian history, it is at once a graphic picture of work camp life and a moving tribute to man’s will to prevail over relentless dehumanization.

Includes an Introduction by Yevgeny Yevtushenko
and an Afterword by Eric Bogosian

About this title

Review:

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.

From the Publisher:

From the icy blast of reveille through the sweet release of sleep, Ivan Denisovich endures. A common carpenter, he is one of millions viciously imprisoned for countless years on baseless charges, sentenced to the waking nightmares of the Soviet work camps in Siberia. Even in the face of degrading hatred, where life is reduced to a bowl of gruel and a rare cigarette, hope and dignity prevail. This powerful novel of fact is a scathing indictment of Communist tyranny, and an eloquent affirmation of the human spirit.

About this edition

• Publisher: Signet
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0451531043
• ISBN 13: 9780451531049
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 176