One Day In The Life Of Ivan Denisovich

The novel is an in-your-face description of a day in the life of an ordinary prisoner in the Soviet Gulag, a forced labor camp, from where, it had been believed, no prisoner ever leaves even after serving his term. The story tells an account of repression under Stalinist rule. Ivan Denisovich Shukov was accused of espionage after being captured by the Germans as a prisoner of war. The novel begins with Shukov waking up late because he was sick; as a consequence, he was forced to face a minor punishment. The novel ends with Shukov providing a special service to an intellectual who was able to get out of manual labor and do office work instead.

Written by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1970 Nobel Prize in Literature), this is one of my most satisfying reads.

{November 01, 2009}