“The most important political novelist of the twentieth century.” — DAVID REMNICK, The New Yorker
“Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn changed the course of history. . . the epochal power of Solzhenitsyn’s work is due not solely to the extent and quantity of his revelations but also to its artistic quality—to the fact that he wrote it with style, and created a work to stand alongside the works of Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky.” — The New Yorker
“The publication by HarperCollins of In the First Circle (the book’s original title) in a restored ninety-six-chapter version, is therefore a publishing event of the first order. .... With the publication of the restored version of In the First Circle, we have an opportunity to rise to Solzhenitsyn’s challenge and again to take him seriously as an artist and thinker of the first rank.” — Daniel J. Mahoney, First Things magazine
“A classic. . . . When comparisons of Solzhenitsyn are made with Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, and Turgenev, this is not hyperbole. . . . Astounding. . . . A literary work of art.” — New York Times Book Review, on the 1968 edition
“Solzhenitsyn’s best novel.” — Washington Post, on the 1968 edition
“The new edition of Solzhenitsyn’s epic novel, In the First Circle captures better than any other work of fiction the quintessence of communist rule at its Stalinist peak: all-pervasive, paranoid, oppressive, incompetent, lethal. . . . The longer text is deeper and darker.” — The Economist
“Solzhenitsyn’s Cold War masterpiece. . . a new radically retranslated edition, which is greatly expanded.” — London Times
“The appearance in English of this new version of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s best novel is an exciting literary event. . . . A great and important book, whose qualities are finally fully available to English-speaking readers.” — Washington Post