Alexander Solzhenitsyn: 'the ultimate realist writer'

Here is my latest blog for Booktrust:

Alexander Solzhenitsyn

Alexander Solzhenitsyn was born in Kislovodsk in the south of Russia on 11 December 1918. On the anniversary of his birth, I am looking back at the life and works of one of Russia’s greatest writers.

Solzhenitsyn was born into a family of Cossack intellectuals and studied Mathematics and Physics at the prestigious Rostov University in southern Russia. He went on to serve as an artillery officer in the army and despite growing up as a staunch supporter of the Soviet regime, he increasingly voiced his concerns over Stalinist policies. One day in 1945, a letter, in which he had openly criticised Stalin, was found and he was immediately denounced. He spent the next eight gruelling years in a gulag prison. Lucky to survive the ordeal, he was then internally exiled to Kazakhstan.

Published on 10-12-10. Read on here

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