BERENSON

1943 he received an additional ten years for referring to the émigré Russian writer and future Nobel Prize-winner Ivan Bunin (author of The Gentleman from San Francisco) as a “classic of Russian literature.” Shalamov did not emerge from prison until 1950.

Kolyma Tales, which of course has never been published in the Soviet Union, is more than testimony; it is a true work of art. Shalamov’s voice, detached and hopeless, is nonetheless never diminished by any sense of inner sickness or complicity. It shines without “reason,” and therefore with even greater eloquence and moral force. The book’s spare, laconic, muted style, its minute, precise observations, etch the everyday reality of camp life with almost unbearable immediacy. The simplicity makes the reader feel vulnerable—you realize that such events truly have happened and can happen again.

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1943 he received an additional ten years for referring to the émigré Russian writer and future Nobel Prize-winner Ivan Bunin (author of The Gentleman from San Francisco) as a “classic of Russian literature.” Shalamov did not emerge from prison until 1950.

Kolyma Tales, which of course has never been published in the Soviet Union, is more than testimony; it is a true work of art. Shalamov’s voice, detached and hopeless, is nonetheless never diminished by any sense of inner sickness or complicity. It shines without “reason,” and therefore with even greater eloquence and moral force. The book’s spare, laconic, muted style, its minute, precise observations, etch the everyday reality of camp life with almost unbearable immediacy. The simplicity makes the reader feel vulnerable—you realize that such events truly have happened and can happen again.