This is undoubtedly the most thorough account of the life and times of Solzhenitsyn to date, but research cannot have been easy, even though Mr Scammell had the cooperation of Solzhenitsyn himself - up to a point. The disentangling of facts from myth, from propaganda, from disinformation, from studied amnesia, has been undertaken with great skill.

LRB 18 April 1985 | PDF Download