Nobel literature academy hails Solzhenitsyn
AFP - [email protected]
Published: 4 Aug, 2008 CET.
Updated: Mon 4 Aug 2008 17:55 CET
The head of the institute that designates the Nobel literature prize lamented on Monday that "one of the biggest trees has fallen" with the death of the 1970 winner of the award, Alexander Solzhenitsyn.
"With his descriptions of the camps, he opened the eyes of many on the left and forced them to reconsider communism," Horace Engdahl, who heads the Swedish Academy, told Aftonbladet a day after the Russian writer and dissident died in Moscow at the age of 89.
Solzhenitsyn, renowned for his harsh criticism of the Soviet regime and descriptions of the Gulag, won the Nobel literature prize 38 years ago but refused to travel to Stockholm to receive the award for fear he would not be allowed to return home.
"He will remain one of our time's greatest authors, even now that he is gone," Engdahl said.
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"With his descriptions of the camps, he opened the eyes of many on the left and forced them to reconsider communism," Horace Engdahl, who heads the Swedish Academy, told Aftonbladet a day after the Russian writer and dissident died in Moscow at the age of 89.
Solzhenitsyn, renowned for his harsh criticism of the Soviet regime and descriptions of the Gulag, won the Nobel literature prize 38 years ago but refused to travel to Stockholm to receive the award for fear he would not be allowed to return home.
"He will remain one of our time's greatest authors, even now that he is gone," Engdahl said.
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