SOURCE: A review of One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, in Library Journal, February 1, 1963, pp. 526-7.

In the following review, Neiswender discusses the publication and translation of One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich and concludes that, while not anti-Soviet, the novel is a “moving human record” of Stalinist tyranny.

As nearly everyone must be aware by now, no contemporary Russian novel except “Doctor Zhivago” has been preceded by such salvos of publicity as has this outspoken chronicle of life in a Stalinist forced labor camp. The New York Times and Newsweek have commented on its political implications (the first officially sanctioned Russian mention of the camps) and on its dramatic impact upon the Soviet reading public. Shortly after the novel’s November 20 appearance in Novyi Mir (a “liberal” literary monthly), two U.S. publishers were ready with rival translations, the Parker version was being...