One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

From 1945 util the death of Stalin in 1953, Solzhenitsyn was jailed in a series of Soviet labour camps within the Arctic circle. This is his fictionalised account of the daily struggle for survival in the ‘gulag.’ Food, clothing, being on the right side of the guards - here the smallest thing could make the difference between life and death. Millions suffered under this regime and Solzhenitsyn was foremost among those who brought it to the world’s attention. He received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1970, only to be exiled shortly after. Paperback, 144pp.