One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich

This brutal, shattering glimpse of the fate of millions of Russians under Stalin shook Russia and shocked the world when it first appeared. Following a typical day in a labour camp, as experienced by prisoner Ivan Denisovich Shukhov, we are taken on a harrowing journey into a world where survival is all. We discover the importance of a piece of bread or an extra bowl of soup, the incredible luxury of a book and the ingenious possibilities of a nail, a piece of string or a single match. Through Denisovich's suffering we experience incarceration, brutality, hard labour and freezing cold — and participate in the struggle of men to survive both the terrible rigours of nature and the inhumanity of the system that defines their conditions of life.