Still reading it every few weeks and its hanging over my head to finally finish it. Not something you want to read, but a book like few i have read before.
I read Man's Search for Meaning this year and man that's a bleak, hard-hitting book. Just such a gripping experience reading that.
I've recently bought a copy of The Gulag Archipelago which is a historical account of the Gulag in Soviet Russia.
Will definitely add Rwanda to the list. I think these books are so important to read. They're absolutely horrifying, but lest we forget where those ideas lead people.
If you're interested in these kinds of books, I'd recommend you to Svetlana Alexeivich's "Unwomanly Face of War" in particular, if you haven't yet encountered it (and her body of work, in general).
They're more bite-size than Solzhenitsyn's behemoths, and perhaps more literary than documentary, but address some similar atrocities from a very unique and human point of view. In particular, her very humble voice for the feminine experience (one that's historically absent from political and "military" histories) is enlightening and provocative. It also helps that she's a fantastic story-teller – fitting neatly into a long genealogy of excellent Russian storytellers.
I wholeheartedly agree with your sentiment. The world might be a better place, if only every person in a position of power spent some period of their life ruminating this tragic corner of world literature.
Primarily fiction meaning most of it didn't happen???
Yet it is based on the testimony of the 200 people he interviewed as well as his own first hand experience. And was so well documented the KGB couldn't discredit it. Try as you might.
> Primarily fiction meaning most of it didn't happen???
Exactly.
I'm definitely not the most informed person on this topic, but if you're really into it, you can find a lot of materials disproving his claims. Probably most of them are in Russian though, I don't know.
> KGB couldn't discredit it. Try as you might.
There's no point in discrediting someone's beliefs. I just want you to look at his books critically. At least double check the numbers he wrote about.
* Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/215758.Shake_Hands_with_...
Still reading it every few weeks and its hanging over my head to finally finish it. Not something you want to read, but a book like few i have read before.