The most important political novelist of the twentieth century.” — DAVID REMNICK, The New Yorker
“Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn changed the course of history. . . the epochal power of Solzhenitsyn’s work is due not solely to the extent and quantity of his revelations but also to its artistic quality—to the fact that he wrote it with style, and created a work to stand alongside the works of Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky.” — The New Yorker
“The publication by HarperCollins of In the First Circle (the book’s original title) in a restored ninety-six-chapter version, is therefore a publishing event of the first order. .... With the publication of the restored version of In the First Circle, we have an opportunity to rise to Solzhenitsyn’s challenge and again to take him seriously as an artist and thinker of the first rank.” — Daniel J. Mahoney, First Things magazine
“A classic. . . . When comparisons of Solzhenitsyn are made with Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, and Turgenev, this is not hyperbole. . . . Astounding. . . . A literary work of art.” — New York Times Book Review, on the 1968 edition
“Solzhenitsyn’s best novel.” — Washington Post, on the 1968 edition
“The new edition of Solzhenitsyn’s epic novel, In the First Circle captures better than any other work of fiction the quintessence of communist rule at its Stalinist peak: all-pervasive, paranoid, oppressive, incompetent, lethal. . . . The longer text is deeper and darker.” — The Economist
“Solzhenitsyn’s Cold War masterpiece. . . a new radically retranslated edition, which is greatly expanded.” — London Times
“The appearance in English of this new version of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s best novel is an exciting literary event. . . . A great and important book, whose qualities are finally fully available to English-speaking readers.” — Washington Post
Solzhenitsyn’s Cold War masterpiece ... a new radically retranslated edition, which is greatly expanded.
The new edition of Solzhenitsyn’s epic novel, In the First Circle captures better than any other work of fiction the quintessence of communist rule at its Stalinist peak: all-pervasive, paranoid, oppressive, incompetent, lethal. ... The longer text is deeper and darker.
The appearance in English of this new version of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s best novel is an exciting literary event. . . . A great and important book, whose qualities are finally fully available to English-speaking readers.
The appearance in English of this new version of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s best novel is an exciting literary event. . . . A great and important book, whose qualities are finally fully available to English-speaking readers.
Solzhenitsyn’s Cold War masterpiece ... a new radically retranslated edition, which is greatly expanded.
The appearance in English of this new version of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's best novel, mistranslated as The First Circle when it appeared in Britain and America more than 40 years ago, is an exciting literary event that is destined to be little noticed or appreciated in our Twitterized times. This is a sad but unavoidable fact. A long, demanding novel set in Joseph Stalin's Soviet Union, happily now just an artifact of the distant past, is most unlikely to find a large audience today. Nevertheless, I put it down with an exhilarating hope that this splendid new version, wonderfully translated by the late Harry T. Willetts, will help keep alive one of the most important horror stories of the horrific 20th century. Okay, I'm a romantic optimist. But this is a great and important book, whose qualities are finally fully available to English-speaking readers.
The Washington Post
This first uncensored translation of what many consider Solzhenitsyn's masterpiece shows the Nobel laureate treading deeply into the logic of Soviet Russia's gulag, if not deeply enough into the minds of his characters. A quest to discover the identity of a rogue Russian diplomat serves as Solzhenitsyn's springboard for a tour of Russia's immense gulag system, slipping from prisoner to jailer to anguished wife (and even detouring through a weary Stalin) to briefly examine the lives of more than 60 significant characters. Each short chapter contributes to a vast mosaic of philosophies and moral dilemmas that, taken together, form a panorama of a Russia gripped by Stalinist terror. Unfortunately, none of the characters steps out from the shadow of the political to become a full-fledged individual; the result is an oddly skewed work, a highly journalistic novel that hits the political and material realities of post-WWII Russia, but that subsumes humanity beneath its ideas. It's more valuable as testimony than as literature, thanks largely to Solzhenitsyn's insight into one of the great abominations of the 20th century. (Oct.)