Alexander Solzhenit͡syn's novel describes a single prisoner's day in a remote Siberian labour camp in the Stalin era of 1951, of which he had first-hand experience, having been imprisoned from 1945 to 1953 for writing a derogatory comment in a letter to a fellow officer about the conduct of the war.
The book's publication in 1962 was an extraordinary event in Soviet literary history, since never before had an account of Stalinist repressions been openly distributed. Filming the unfilmable, the movie about tedium and hopelessness becomes tedious itself, however, it seemed a fitting movie to watch on a cold and crisp winter morning.
or listen to the BBC drama here
"The day had gone by without a single cloud - almost a happy day. There were three thousand and fifty-three days in his sentence, from reveille to lights-out. The three extra days were because of the leap years ..."
