The Gulag Archipelago

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Jun 2019 · Vintage Digital · Narrated by Jordan B Peterson and Ignat Solzhenitsyn

About this audiobook

Brought to you by Penguin.

The audiobook edition of The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, read by the author's son, Ignat Solzhenitsyn.

With a new foreword written and read by Jordan B. Peterson, and an exclusive Q&A between Jordan B. Peterson and Ignat Solzhenitsyn.

The officially approved abridgement of The Gulag Archipelago Volumes I, II & III.

A vast canvas of camps, prisons, transit centres and secret police, of informers and spies and interrogators but also of everyday heroism, The Gulag Archipelago is Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's grand masterwork. Based on the testimony of some 200 survivors, and on the recollection of Solzhenitsyn's own 11 years in labour camps and exile, it chronicles the story of those at the heart of the Soviet Union who opposed Stalin, and for whom the key to survival lay not in hope but in despair.

A thoroughly researched document and a feat of literary and imaginative power, this edition of The Gulag Archipelago was abridged into one volume at the author's wish and with his full co-operation.

© Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn 2019 (P) Penguin Audio 2019

Ratings and reviews

This book is a must, it's long, maybe longer than i'd like. because it takes you deep into the abyss made by Ideology. it shows how we created something with heaven in mind, but ended somehow in hell. Hell for the so called "enemies of the people". it says so much about human nature, our will, our soul and purpose. when we're at the direst of circumstances we find our true self. I'm so glad i found this book, got depressed for a couple of weeks during the darkest chapters. but i'm happy i finished it. Can't recommend this enough. at the beginning the editor says wich chapters to read if you don't want to know every dark and strong detail. I do think this should be mandatory not only on Russia, but on the rest of the world. i think it would be a better place if it were.

The gulag archipelago should be in the curriculum of all schools not just in the Russian schools. Its is an eye opening and sometimes terrifying book about real life events that happened to the innocent by a ruthless dictator . I listen to this audiobook while I was at work through my headphones and every time I took my headphones off it was like removing a dark cloud from over my head and left me wondering what if this happened to my country what would I do.

At times almost overwhelming but always incredibly perceptive and intuitive of humanity's good and bad.

About the author

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was born in 1918 and grew up in Rostov-on-Don. He graduated in Physics and Mathematics from Rostov University and studied Literature by correspondence course at Moscow University. In World War II he fought as an artillery officer, attaining the rank of captain. In 1945, however, after making derogatory remarks about Stalin in a letter, he was arrested and summarily sentenced to eight years in forced labour camps, followed by internal exile. In 1957 he formally rehabilitated, and settled down to teaching and writing, in Ryazan and Moscow. The publication of One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich in Novy Mir in 1962 was followed by publication, in the West, of his novels Cancer Ward and The First Circle. In 1970 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, and in 1974 his citizenship was revoked and he was expelled from the Soviet Union. He settled in Vermont and worked on his great historical cycle The Red Wheel. In 1990, with the fall of Soviet Communism, his citizenship was restored and four years later he returned to settle in Russia. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn died in August 2008.