I was fated to survive, but other, perhaps more talented, stronger than l, perished. I myself met but few of them in the Gulag Archipelago, a multitude of scattered island fragments. Indeed, under the millstone of surveillance and mistrust, l did not talk to just any man; of some l only heard; and of others l only guessed. Those with a name in literature who vanished into that abyss are, at least, known but how many were unrecognized, never once publicly mentioned? And so very few, almost no one ever managed to return. A whole national literature is there, buried without a coffin, without even underwear, naked, a number tagged on its toe. Not for a moment did Russian literature cease , yet from outside it seemed a wasteland. Where a harmonious forest could have grown, were left, after all the cutting, two or three accidentally overlooked.