For the centenary of the Russian Revolution, a new edition of the Russian Nobelist's most accessible novel

"
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" is an undisputed classic of contemporary literature. First published (in censored form) in the Soviet journal "Novy Mir" in 1962, it is the story of labor-camp inmate Ivan Denisovich Shukhov as he struggles to maintain his dignity in the face of communist oppression. On every page of this graphic depiction of Ivan Denisovich's struggles, the pain of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's own decade-long experience in the gulag is apparent--which makes its ultimate tribute to one man's will to triumph over relentless dehumanization all the more moving.
An unforgettable portrait of the entire world of Stalin's forced-work camps, "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" is one of the most extraordinary literary works to have emerged from the Soviet Union. The first of Solzhenitsyn's novels to be published, it forced both the Soviet Union and the West to confront the Soviet's human rights record, and the novel was specifically mentioned in the presentation speech when Solzhenitsyn was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1970. Above all, "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" establishes Solzhenitsyn's stature as "a literary genius whose talent matches that of Dostoevsky, Turgenev, Tolstoy" (Harrison Salisbury, "The ""New York Times").
This unexpurgated, widely acclaimed translation by H. T. Willetts is the only translation authorized by Solzhenitsyn himself.

KEYNOTE

In "An Incident at Krechetovka Station," a Red Army lieutenant is confronted by a disturbing straggler soldier and must decide what to do with him. "Matryona's House" is the tale of an old peasant woman, whose tenacious struggle against cold, hunger, and greedy relatives is described by a young man who only understands her after her death.

In 1956, after leaving behind his ordeal in the gulag, Alexander Solzhenitsyn wanted to get lost in a quiet corner of the USSR, and applied for employment as a mathematics teacher. While looking for accommodations in the town that was sent, saw the hut of Matrona, an elderly widow who lived with a lame cat and a goat for company and decided to stay there.

Durante los seis meses que siguieron al derrumbe de la Union Sovietica, uno de cada tres habitantes extranjeros de Chechenia resulto victima de la violencia, en una 'purificacion etnica' que, a diferencia de la que sufrio Bosnia, fue desconocida por el mundo. Los gobernantes rusos firmaron la paz con esa republica, mientras alli sus compatriotas se vendian como esclavos, y una vez terminada la guerra no permitieron que los refugiados retornaran a su pais. Este fue solo uno de los efectos de la crisis que comenzo en el otono boreal de 1991. Asimismo, las reformas economicas del nuevo regimen, iniciadas en el periodo de Gorbachov, desorganizaron por completo el sistema economico nacional y destruyeron una trama de intercambios e interdependencias que no fue sustituida por ninguna otra, por lo que millones de personas quedaron en la miseria. En este fin de siglo, Rusia esta reducida a una existencia fantasmal, en la que dirigentes notoriamente corruptos conservan sus puestos, el crimen organizado domina la opinion publica por medio del dinero y la justicia no posee utilidad alguna. En el presente libro, continuacion de su obra El 'problema ruso' al final del siglo XX, Alexandr Solzhenitsyn - inobjetable testigo de una epoca cuyas atrocidades no han cesado describe la situacion actual y el destino de su patria; analiza su historia, asi como la decadencia de su cultura y su caracter, y explica por que el zemtsvo - asamblea provincial y comarcal elegida por todas las clases sociales - es una herramienta que podra resolver las dificultades nacionales. En medio del derrumbe general, los bibliotecarios siguen adelante con su trabajo; a pesar de sus nuevas fronteras tronchadas, Rusia puedeautoabastecerse: el unico bien que todavia no le han arrebatado es el espiritu del pueblo. Si este se sobrepone a la inercia del presente por medio del trabajo obstinado y la recuperacion del particular fenomeno de su cultura, podra ser dueno de su destino.