Nobel Prize Winner Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Dead

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, whose works condemned the suffering caused by the Soviet Communism, died at 89 years of age in his beloved Russia. His works include: A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, The First Circle, The Cancer Ward and the Gulag Archipelago. The latter, a detailed description of the Soviet labor camp system, was the reason for his expulsion from the Soviet Union. Following the collapse of the Soviet government, Solzhenitsyn returned to Russia. He criticized what he described as its spiritual decline. Later, he saw President Vladimir V. Putin as a restorer of Russia’s greatness. More than 30 million of his books have been sold worldwide and translated into some 40 languages. In 1970, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. Solzhenitsyn did not travel to Stockholm to accept the prize for fear that the Soviet authorities would prevent him from returning. He lived courageously, believing “it is within the power of writers and artists to do much more: to defeat the lie!”