Fyodor Dostoyevsky's Notes from the House of the Dead, written one hundred years prior to Solzhenitsyn's novella, provides a brilliant insight into the penal camps of the 19th century.

Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl is a profoundly moving work on the Nazi concentration camps, shedding light on the psychological impact of camp life.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn: Stories and Prose Poems,translated by Michael Glenny, contains the famous "Matryona's House" and "An Incident at Krechetovka Station" plus lesser-known pieces.

In Cancer Ward,Solzhenitsyn used him own experience with cancer to write a polyphonic novel, that is, a novel with several main characters instead of just one.

Solzhenitsyn's The First Circle is considered the most autobiographical of his novels and takes place in a "sharashka," a prison for scientists to do research while serving their sentences. The title is based...