Product Description

This brutal, shattering glimpse of the fate of millions of Russians under Stalin shook Russia and shocked the world when it first appeared. Discover the importance of a piece of bread or an extra bowl of soup, the incredible luxury of a book, the ingenious possibilities of a nail, a piece of string or a single match in a world where survival is all. Here safety, warmth and food are the first objectives. Reading it, you enter a world of incarceration, brutality, hard manual labour and freezing cold - and participate in the struggle of men to survive both the terrible rigours of nature and the inhumanity of the system that defines their conditions of life.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2386 in Books
• Published on: 2000-11-30
• Original language: Russian
• Binding: Paperback
• 144 pages

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
'This is the first worthy translation into English and the one I have approved'

New Statesman
'A masterpiece in the great Russian tradition. There have been many literary sensations since Stalin died. Doctor Zhivago apart, few of them can stand up in their own right as works of art. Ivan Denisovich is different'

About the Author
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was born in 1918 and grew up in Rostov-on-Don. He graduated in physics and mathematics from Rostov University and studied literature by correspondence course at Moscow University. In World War II he fought as an artillery officer, attaining the rank of captain. In 1945, however, after making derogatory remarks about Stalin in a letter, he was arrested and summarily sentenced to eight years in forced labour camps, followed by internal exile. In 1957 he formally rehabilitated, and settled down to teaching and writing. The publication of One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich in Novy Mir in 1962 was followed by publication, in the West, of his novels Cancer Ward and The First Circle. In 1970 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, and in 1974 his citizenship was revoked and he was expelled from the Soviet Union. He settled in Vermont and worked on his great historical cycle The Red Wheel. In 1990, with the fall of Soviet Communism, his citizenship was restored and four years later he returned to settle in Russia.

Customer Reviews

The Impossibly Inhumane Is Humanly Possible
Gripping. This account of one day in the life of a gulag prisoner is a terrifying insight into the barbarity of us humans. Who knows the true number of intelligent and educated men who were in cahoots with Stalin to design a system that reduced men to wild dogs and dust. And lest we fool ourselves that this could only have happened in soviet Russia or fascist Germany. Remember we had slavery in the US and all over Africa and the Middle East, in Greece, Rome, ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia. These are just the ones where we have something written down. Today we also have economic gulags - in Brazil, Mexico, India and in western economies where we are actively encouraged to keep spending especially on credit burying ourselves in a ballooning muck of debt. With luck we might get something as beautiful and useful as Ivan Denisovich out of Guantanamo Bay. Civilized Minds Of The World, Unite!

The most important book written in the last century
My Dad gave me "One Day" for my fifteenth birthday and, at a time when Neo-Marxism was the academic rigour of the decade (and whose methodology I consequently mastered), it lent me an abiding uneasiness with the left's meritricious claims to monopolise progressive thought. A microcosm of a peoples tragedy and an exoriating expose of the Soviet regime's reality.

A harrowing 'must-read'
Set in a post-war Stalinist labour camp, this novel, as the title suggests, centres on a single day in the life of `political prisoner' Ivan Denisovich, from (before) sunrise to (well after) sunset. As one might imagine, Ivan has little to look forward to on this `typical' day in the camp; ultra sub-zero temperatures, horrendous food, forced labour, and incessantly picky guards all await him, and his fellow inmates. As harrowing as the day is though, this day actually turns out to be one of the `better' ones, which although bringing a little cheer to Ivan, leaves the reader puzzling (and more than a little shocked), over what must constitute a `bad' day in one of these places.

Comprising of a mere 143 pages, I finished reading this classic rather speedily, although perhaps not as `speedily' as I would have, if I were reading a novel that originated in English. As a qualified historian I'm wholly familiar with clumsy translations, and sadly this translated novel is no different. So if you're planning on reading this yourself, then be prepared to re-read a number of the sentences, in order to fully decipher their full meaning. Don't let that put you off though (or from reading any translated Russian literature for that matter), as the minor hindrance caused by having to pause and re-read, is completed negated by the quality of this work.

Along with other works that he penned during the 1960's, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn got himself into a lot of bother from the Soviet authorities for writing this novel, and after reading it, it's clear to see why. Aided by more than a liberal dose of anti-Stalinist sentimentality, Mr. Solzhenitsyn pulls no punches in describing the conditions in Soviet labour camps. Given that he himself spent eight years in these camps, after the war, this is no surprise, but because Mr. Solzhenitsyn was able to infuse his own experiences into this novel, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich is an absolute `must read' - just don't expect to leave your chair in anything like a cheery mood.