The Gulag Archipelago 1918-1956

First published in 1973, this documentary narrative maps the Soviet system of arrest, interrogation, transit, camp, and exile from the Revolution through Stalin's death and after. Solzhenitsyn draws on his own imprisonment, on letters and spoken testimony from fellow zeks, and on official practice to describe how a person entered the archipelago, how labour and hunger were organised, and how some resisted. Chapters treat the law, the jailers, women and children, revolt, and release that is not freedom. The book is a literary investigation of a penal empire, not a single camp memoir and not a novel.

Bound in illustrated pale blue cloth boards. Black slipcase.