One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich is a novel written by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, first published in November 1962 in the Soviet literary magazine Novy Mir (New World). The story is set in a Soviet labor camp in the 1950s, and describes a single day of an ordinary prisoner, Ivan Denisovich Shukhov. Its publication was an extraordinary event in Soviet literary history – never before had an account of Stalinist repression been openly distributed.
– From Wikipedia
Book 12, and I’m enjoying myself again. I have a like-dislike relationship with historical novels (or novels that are broadly based on true history) as they frustratingly highlight my ignorance while satisfyingly denting it (if only slightly). On the other hand, I have no time for films that (honestly, at least) claim to be “based on true events”; I find it never gives a film any greater context or value.
Do you prefer “historical” novels? “True” films? Or would you rather not know at all?
Al Online 