Missed a day in there somewhere.... I guess I wasn't reading or something. Quote for both Monday and today, June 17 Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn was born in the south of Russia. At the age of twenty-six, he was sentenced to eight years of forced labor of criticizing Stalin in a letter to a friend. In 1962, the publication of One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich brought him international fame. Two years later, The First Circle was accepted for publication in a Soviet journal, but was blocked by Soviet government authorities; ultimately his manuscript was smuggled abroad and published in translation in 1968. In 1970, he won the Nobel Prize for Literature. After eighteen years of living in exile in the United States, he returned to Russia in 1994. --book cover excerpt, The First Circle "Solzhenitsyn's mission in life was to speak the truth to those in power. Professor Ericson has noted that although Solzhenitsyn described the horrors of Russia's past, he always ended his books with a note of hope. In each of his writings, the root of our contemporary horrors is simply that "men have forgotten God." Change is possible however, once people put their faith in God. This insight is a profound warning not only for Solzhenitsyn's fellow Russians, but for all of us "who have ears to hear." --Dr. J. Bernbaum, RACU, Alexander Solzhenitsyn: Repentance and Moral Renewal, 1998.