Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn 1918-2008

Oddly enough, I just started reading the GULAG Archipelago. If you've never read One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, I wholeheartedly recommend it. The book is a powerful meditation on the relationship between the citizen and the state; between criminal and prisoner; guard and dissident. I've been entranced by the stark simplicity of prison camp literature since I first read Kolyma Tales, by Varlam Shalamov. Sitting here, well-fed and warm, it is difficult to express the value of reading literature written by people whose primary teaching was that everything in the world can betray you to suffering: the instruments of the state, friends, family, your own body and the ground you walk upon. It is difficult to reference their bitter struggle without sounding fatuous. Nevertheless, reading about the brief, fragile victories the zeks were able to snatch from their oppressors has lent me inexpressible support.