RIP Solzhenitsyn

Solzhenitsyn died last Monday. He was old, but I'm still sad about it.

The Soviet critics and censors witheld the recognition that he and Pasternak deserved within their country: They (though Pasternak wrote only one novel among his many poems), are, I would go so far as to say, the direct inheritors of the Russian literary tradition passed down through Dostoevsky and Tolstoy.

Solzhenitsyn proved much through living and surviving the oppressive Soviet Regime throughout almost the entirety of its existence. However, I feel that his time was soon up: He did what he had to do, and outlasted a government that hated him. But he did not get to enjoy his newfound freedom for long.

RIP Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
Cancer Ward
Gulag Archipelago
The Red Wheel:
-August 1914
-November 1916
- [Has yet to be translated]