In the First Circle

The thrilling cold war masterwork by the nobel prize winner, published in full for the first timeMoscow, Christmas Eve, 1949.The Soviet secret police intercept a call made to the American embassy by a Russian diplomat who promises to deliver secrets about the nascent Soviet Atomic Bomb program. On that same day, a brilliant mathematician is locked away inside a Moscow prison that houses the countrys brightest minds. He and his fellow prisoners are charged with using their abilities to sleuth out the callers identity, and they must choose whether to aid Joseph Stalins repressive stateor refuse and accept transfer to the Siberian Gulag camps . . . and almost certain death.First written between 1955 and 1958, In the First Circle is Solzhenitsyns fiction masterpiece. In order to pass through Soviet censors, many essential scenesincluding nine full chapterswere cut or altered before it was published in a hastily translated English edition in 1968. Now with the help of the authors most trusted translator, Harry T. Willetts, here for the first time is the complete, definitive English edition of Solzhenitsyns powerful and magnificent classic.