A review by kategallo
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

3.0

An impactful read that highlights the brutality of hard-labour camps under Stalin's rule. Probably owing to a number of factors - translation, era of writing, and subject matter; this book is terse and, at times, dry. It illuminates the dichotomy between the mind-numbing repetition and never-ending paranoia that accompanied the lives of people in these camps. It was definitely a challenging read to get through - while it was certainly interesting, the language and subject matter required commitment to interpret, especially without prior knowledge of Soviet Communism. However, this was insightful, and is a book that will stick in my head for a long time.