One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich

160 pp. Author's first book, largely autobiographical. This edition, released simultaneously with the 1963 Praeger edition (both companies believed they had the rights to print it), translated from the Russian by Ralph Parker, with an introduction by Marvin L. Kalb, and a special foreword by A. Tvardovsky, editor-in-chief of Novy Mir and an officer of the Union of Soviet Writers. First published in 1962, this book is considered one of the most significant works ever to emerge from Soviet Russia. Illuminating a dark chapter in Russian history, it is at once a graphic picture of work camp life and a moving tribute to man's will to prevail over relentless dehumanization, told by "a literary genius whose talent matches that of Dostoyevsky, Turgenev, Tolstoy, [and] Gorky" (Harrison Salisbury, New York Times).