"For the ethical force with which he has pursued the indispensable traditions
of Russian literature." - From the Nobel Prize Citation for Alexander
Solzhenitsyn, October 8, 1970.
In mid-century - 1962 to be exact - a bright new talent appeared with
stunning suddenness on the literary horizon. Alexander Solzhenitsyn, together
with his epoch-making work, One Day In The Life Of Ivan Denisovich, flared up
like a supernova in the Eastern skies and incandesced the Western skies as
well. Today Solzhenitsyn remains the most impressive figure in world
literature of the latter half of the 20th century.
Before One Day was throttled in the USSR, it had become an overnight
sensation. The 100,000 copies of Novy Mir (New World) carrying the novella
sold out in November 1962 in a matter of hours; so did the almost 1 million
copies of immediate second and third printings. But by 1963, not only
Solzhenitsyn, who had earlier been a protege of the Soviet......
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