Solzhenitsyn (1918-2008) was raised in a family of Russian Orthodox Christians, but he was schooled as an atheistic communist. Even though he joined Soviet organizations and the Russian army, he grew to despise Stalin. When his letters exposed his feelings to the communist leaders, he was sent to the Gulag Archipelago prison system. The atrocities he witnessed strengthened his return to Orthodox Christianity, along with his growing anti-communism, and he decided to write about victims of Stalin, endangering his own life. One Day In The Life of Ivan Denisovich, a nightmarish story of one typical Russian's suffering in Soviet prisons, began the exposure of communism's cruelties, both to the Soviet public and to a worldwide audience. Solzhenitsyn wrote many more novels, lived in America (and criticized the West's materialism), won the Nobel Prize in Literature, and returned to Russia, never losing his great courage.
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