After finishing the latest book in my 50 Novels in One Year reading challenge, I thought I would take a break from American-authored novels (3 out of the first 5 I’ve read have been by American authors), and move to something completely different, Russian literature, in the form of the Nobel Prize winning novel – One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.
Although I’ve never read any Russian novels, I have a fascination for them. Aside from being well aware that some of the world’s greatest classics are ‘penned’ by Russians i.e. Tolstoy’s War & Peace, Dostoevsky’s Crime & Punishment etc., the often brutal history of Russia (especially during the Stalinist era), and the diversity of its culture, is of huge interest to me.
While both of the aforementioned Russian ‘classics’ are on my reading list, I decided to ‘cut my teeth’ on this much smaller work, if only for it having the reputation of being the first Russian novel to openly portray Stalinist repression (EDIT: post-reading thoughts can be found HERE).
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[...] now finished reading this chosen title as part of my 50 Novels in One Year reading challenge so I thought, as always, I’d [...]