© 2024 All Rights reserved WUSF
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Alexander Solzhenitsyn, A 'Man With A Mission'

The Nobel Prize-winning author whose books chronicled the horrors of the Soviet gulag system has died of heart failure. Alexander Solzhenitsyn was 89.

NPR's Anne Garrels talks with Steve Inskeep about a rare interview she had with Solzhenitsyn just after he was expelled from the Soviet Union in the 1970s.

Garrels says that when it came to interviews, Solzhenitsyn was a "man with a mission, and it was basically ... everyone's obligation to support him."

Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Corrected: August 5, 2008 at 10:59 AM EDT
In some broadcasts, we said Solzhenitsyn "couldn't publish any more at home" after his book "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" came out. In fact, he did subsequently publish a few short works in the U.S.S.R.
You Count on Us, We Count on You: Donate to WUSF to support free, accessible journalism for yourself and the community.