In memory of Alexander Solzhenitsyn

Nobel laureate Alexander Solzhenitsyn has died of heart failure at his Moscow home, aged 89. Solzhenitsyn won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1970 after writing harrowing works about the Soviet Union's system of labour camps, where he spent eight years from 1945.

The words ‘rest in peace’ seem somehow anathema to the life Solzhenitsyn lived. If his writing is any guide his thoughts must have been close to nightmares. My introduction to his writing was the novel August 1914, published in 1971, and among the most accessible of his works.

I am still struggling with ‘Gulag…” Each page seems intense with nightmare thoughts, not and easy read by any stretch. Still, I dare say I will keep picking it up from time to time and struggling through a few more pages. As a confirmation of the terrors inherent in society it seems just too close to the truth.

I remain indebted to this master of words, to his translators as well, but I don’t expect to emulate him any time soon.