Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn (/

Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn (/soʊlʒəˈniːtsɨn/;[1] Russian: Алекса́ндр Иса́евич Солжени́цын, pronounced [ɐlʲɪˈksandr ɪˈsaɪvʲɪt͡ɕ səlʐɨˈnʲit͡sɨn]; 11 December 1918 – 3 August 2008)[2] was an eminent Russian novelist, historian, and tireless critic of Communist totalitarianism. He helped to raise global awareness of the gulag and the Soviet Union's forced labor camp system. While his writings were often suppressed, he wrote many books most notably The Gulag Archipelago and One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, two of his best-known works. "For the ethical force with which he has pursued the indispensable traditions of Russian literature",[3] Solzhenitsyn was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1970. He was expelled from the Soviet Union in 1974 but returned to Russia in 1994 after the dissolution of the Soviet Union.