Between Two Millstones, Book 2

When you read Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn you know that you are reading and being read by one of the greatest men of the bloody 20th century. . . . He wouldnt be muzzled. . . . He is also frank. Solzhenitsyn never hesitated to reveal to his readers the truth of things, including his own soul. The American Conservative This long-awaited translation does not disappoint, offering insights into [Solzhenitsyns] work on The Red Wheel, his family life in Vermont, and his responses to the rapidly evolving political circumstances of what proved to be Soviet Communisms waning years. . . . Between Two Millstones provides interesting insights into not just Solzhenitsyn but also the landscape he inhabited . . . [and] may be the most pleasurable read in his catalogan opportunity to spend time with the writer in pleasant refuge. The American Spectator In Between Two Millstones Solzhenitsyn blends several literary genresautobiography, essay, and a touch of diary. . . . Readers encounter a great-souled Russian and Christian man in medias res, as he thinks, feels, lives his way through the years of separation from his beloved homeland. Will Morrisey Reviews "Outsiders see things those on the inside cannot see. Alexis de Tocqueville penetrated American democracy as no American could. In a similar fashion, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyns Between Two Millstones[, Book 2]: Exile in America, 1978-1994 presents a view of America that few Americans could have grasped." Law & Liberty The thread unifying the second volume of Between Two Millstones . . . is Solzhenitsyns ongoing research and writing of The Red Wheel, his cycle of four novels (with more planned) spanning Russian history from the eruption of World War I in August 1914 to December 1917, just after the Bolshevik Revolution. . . . For Solzhenitsyn, fiction can be an instrument of truth, as it was for many of his Russian predecessors. Los Angeles Review of Books "Solzhenitsyn assumes a Tolstoyan mien (unwittingly or deliberately?). Striving for his works publication in Russia, he envisioned his exegi monumentum would restore Russias glory and soul. Thus in this second book . . . he corrects the lies and misinterpretations his works and appearances suered from Soviet invectives as well as Western misperceptions. . . . Recommended." Choice "This memoir exemplifies the difficult question of belonging. Without slipping into clichs, Solzhenitsyn challenges both migr and American alike to seek the truth, not only of ones own existence, but also that of a nation." Modern Age Today, as America seems more fractured than ever before, Solzhenitsyns reflections on how to restore Russia to a state of ordered liberty seem especially pertinent. . . . Solzhenitsyn is an inspirationas a thinker, an artist, and a warrior who never tired of the battle. City Journal "Perhaps the lengthiest but most important single episode recounted in Book 2 is Solzhenitsyns account of working with his biographer, Michael Scammel. For anyone familiar with this affair, reading this autobiographical account offers a fascinating first-hand view into the complicated professional relationship between the two men. For those who are unfamiliar, it is an edge-of-your-seat intellectual thriller, a rollercoaster of literary intrigue." The University Bookman The last volume of Solzhenitsyns memoirs, the recently translated second part of Between Two Millstones, . . . casts the Gorbachev years as an eerie repeat of 1917. The New York Review of Books

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (19182008), Nobel Prize laureate in literature, was a Soviet political prisoner from 1945 to 1953. His story One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (1962) made him famous, and The Gulag Archipelago (1973) further unmasked Communism and played a critical role in its eventual defeat. Solzhenitsyn was exiled to the West in 1974. He ultimately published dozens of plays, poems, novels, and works of history, nonfiction, and memoir, including In the First Circle, Cancer Ward, The Oak and the Calf, and Between Two Millstones, Book 1: Sketches of Exile, 19741978 (University of Notre Dame Press, 2018). Clare Kitson is a Russian literary translator. She has also translated part of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyns epic cycle, The Red Wheel. Melanie Moore is a Russian and French translator, and she has produced a number of Russian literary translations. Daniel J. Mahoney holds the Augustine Chair in Distinguished Scholarship at Assumption College.

Publishers Note Foreword to Book 2 PART TWO (19781982) 6. Russian Pain 7. A Creeping Host 8. More Headaches PART THREE (19821987) 9. Around Three Islands 10. Drawing Inward 11. Ordeal by Tawdriness 12. Alarm in the Senate 13. Warm Breeze PART FOUR (19871994) 14. Through the Brambles 15. Ideas Spurned 16. Nearing the Return APPENDICES List of Appendices Appendices (2536) Notes to the English Translation Index of Selected Names General Index