Death of Solzhenitsyn

Posted by Kerry Kubilius Aug 3, 2008

Alexander Sozhenitsyn has died of a stroke at age 89. This Nobel Prize-winning author was highly critical of the Soviet regime. A prisoner of labor camps, he went on to write novels that exposed the horrors of the Gulag system, like A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich and The Gulag Archipelago.

The NPR All Things Considered piece described typed copies of Solzhenitsyn's work being passed between readers when the books were banned in Russia. Solzhenitsyn was eventually exiled from Russia, though he returned after several years in the United States. Highly critical and highly criticized in his later life, Solzhenitsyn is best known for his early works that have now become important classics.