Died of heart failure August 3rd 2008.

“One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” in 1962
“Cancer Ward” and “The First Circle” in 1968.
These three book changed my view of literature and opened me to so many other authors I would never have considered before.

They also started me on the path to understanding integrity.
He was sentenced to eight years in a labour camp near Moscow in 1945. He decided to deliberately be transferred to the back-breaking physical toil in a camp in Kazakhstan so as to share the lot of ordinary prisoners. In his remaining three years there, he contracted and overcame cancer.

He won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1970.
One quote, unknown author, “He toiled obsessively to unearth the darkest secrets of Stalinist rule and his work ultimately dealt a crippling blow to the Soviet Union’s authority.”

His life story once more shows fact can outdo fiction.

His writing was immensely incredible, and as you point out, his life even more so!

The works you have quoted also have had an incredible effect on me, and show some of the finest works in Russian literature, dovetailing the grim days of the post-Dostoevsky novel and the future generation of wonderful Russian writers.

His longevity was incredible… he outlived practically most of the great American writers of the 20th century, overcame the harshest injustices of the Soviet Union during WWII to become one of the giants of Russian culture.

He will not be forgotten. His wonderful work remains, and his Russian heart is within us all, whenever we toil with the rocky shards of injustice.

RIP.

His life will be remembered, his presence will never die.

The thing that first fascinated me about Solzhenitsyn was that his writing style was so clear, I could easily picture what he was describing. But it was less fun when going through the Gulag Archipelago as it got so depressing.

That said, Solzehnitsyn was one of the world’s most engaging writers.