One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich

By: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Narrated by: Richard Brown

Length: 5 hrs and 5 mins

Publisher's summary

One of the most extraordinary literary documents to have emerged from the Soviet Union, this is the story of labor camp inmate Ivan Denisovich Shukhov and his struggle to maintain his dignity in the face of Communist oppression. Based on the author’s own experience in the gulags, where he spent nearly a decade as punishment for making derogatory remarks against Stalin, the novel is an unforgettable portrait of the entire world of Stalin’s forced work camps. An instant classic upon publication in 1962, it confirmed Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s international stature as “a literary genius whose talent matches that of Dostoevsky, Turgenev, Tolstoy” (Harrison Salisbury).

©1978 Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (P)1992 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Critic reviews

“Richard Brown’s razor-sharp narration perfectly suits this fine translation.”– ( Library Journal)

" One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich yields, more than anything else, a beautiful sense of its author as a Chekhovian figure: simple, free of literary affectation, wholly serious.” ( New Republic)

there's a reason it's popular.

voice dudes ok (shrug). As an American, it's kinda funny picturing Soviet prisoners with a British accent, and comedy's exactly what readers are looking for here.

great book!

Made you really think about our culture and their flirtation with socialism. Also made you realize that life lived under difficult circumstances can still be a life filled with small joys.

Recommended

The audio was a little hard to understand from time to time, especially when accelerated, but the book is as vital as ever.

Should have listened to the preview first...

I simply could not get past the first 10 minutes without hastily turning it off and swearing to never skip listening to a preview before making my audible book purchase. The money I have wasted!! UGH

millions dead because of "enforcers" of the "law"

I am not afraid of death... I am afraid of living on my knees as a powerless slave.

>"Listen, what's the most horrible experience you can imagine? To me—it's being left, unarmed, in a sealed cell with a drooling beast of prey or a maniac who's had some disease that's eaten his brain out. You'd have nothing then but your voice—your voice and your thought. You'd scream to that creature why it should not touch you, you'd have the most eloquent words, the unanswerable words, you'd become the vessel of the absolute truth. And you'd see living eyes watching you and you'd know that the thing can't hear you, that it can't be reached, not reached, not in any way, yet it's breathing and moving there before you with a purpose of its own. That's horror. Well, that's what's hanging over the world, prowling somewhere through mankind, that same thing, something closed, mindless, utterly wanton, but something with an aim and a cunning of its own."
Steven Mallory, The Fountainhead (the beast is the symptom... ellsworth m toohey is the cause)

A Man Making the Best of It

This book always has a place deep in my heart. This is the second time I've read it and it impacted me just as much now as then many years ago. It shows the indomitable will of the human spirit to not only survive but to thrive in the harshest of conditions. I found that the amount of gratitude and appreciation that the main character in the novel showed toward even the smallest things in his life to be incredibly touching. Read this book. It is an enduring, existential classic!

better than I remember it from high school

The narrator really brings this story to life. An excellent book for our times. Hard to imagine surviving something like this for 10 years let alone 25.

it's okay

it was okay but I'm not a fan of this British reader from Blackstone.

Wonderful book, horrible audio

One of my favorite books of the year, but the audio quality of this version is terrible — I switched to another audiobook halfway through. Save your credit and listen to the other version on audible

I wanted way more than one day -

I agree with one reviewer that the first 10 minutes are painful and I did consider turning it off. So glad I didn't though. This snapshot "day" opens the world of Stalin's forced labor camps. There is magic in the details, the thoughts, the motives... the bite of sausage, the bread in the mattress. I am so glad it was a good day he chose to share, since I felt almost as if with him. A classic I should have read years ago and will read again.