The First Circle

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn · 1918–2008 · Russia

Originally V Kruge Pervom (Russian)

Why it matters

Prisoner-scientists in a relatively humane Moscow research prison must choose between comfort bought by collaboration and integrity bought at the price of the ordinary camps. Solzhenitsyn's Dantean title names the bargain every zek in his fiction eventually has to make.

At a glance

A wide ensemble cast debates philosophy and complicity within a single claustrophobic institution.