Varlam Shalamov is rightly called a great artist, the author of deep psychological and philosophical prose. What Shalamov wrote is a terrible document of the...

“The bottom of the wooden barrel was knocked out and sealed with a grid of strip iron. The dog Kazbek was sitting in a barrel. Sotnikov fed Kazbek raw meat a...

“The mountain stream was already captured by ice, and on the rifts there was no stream at all. The stream froze over the rifts, and a month later there was n...

“We played cards at Naumov’s horse-driver’s. The guards on duty never looked into the barracks of the horsemen, rightly believing that their main service was...

“On the ground at the threshold of the dispensary there were fresh traces of bear claws. The lock, the cunning screw lock with which the door was locked, was...

“Andreev left the adit and went to the lamp room to hand over his extinct Wolf.” “They’ll get attached again,” he thought lazily about the security service. ...

“The blind priest walked through the courtyard, feeling with his feet a narrow board, like a steamship ladder, laid on the ground. He walked slowly, almost w...

“The easiest job in a gold mining team is the work of a ladder operator, a carpenter who builds a ladder, sews together boards with nails on which wheelbarro...

“The accounting department couldn’t find a senior clerk. Subsequently, when the case grew, this position accommodated an entire independent department - the ...

“But we weren’t robots, were we? Chapek robots from the RUR. And not by the miners of the Ruhr coal basin. Our RUR is a high-security company, a prison withi...

“Late at night, Krist was called “to the military base.” That was the name of the house in the camp, nestled against the hill at the edge of the village. The...

“Every story I tell is absolutely authentic,” wrote Varlam Shalamov, whose prose is merciless, bitter and frank. This book includes the writer's early storie...