To our horror, we recently found out that our supposedly Russian read in March—Night Watch by Sergei Lukyanenko—was actually from an author born in Kazakhstan. (Thanks to book club member, Carol Wheldon for pointing that out.)
We take great pride working to ensure we only include books which match the club criteria & spend countless hours on research every month to accomplish this. However, it looks like the 2 sites we used to verify the birthplace of this author were incorrect. (Since Kazakhstan was under Soviet rule, it’s somewhat understandable that the sites made this error, but it’s still disappointing.) Moving forward, all 3 of us from the book club management team will verify each book using multiple web sites to ensure this doesn’t happen again.
But this now means we read a book from Kazakhstan & not Russia. So here’s how we’re remedying this:
1. We’ve now updated our site to note that Night Watch is a book from Kazakhstan, not Russia & have added in 5 other books from Kazakhstan if you’re interested in another read from there.
2. For July, we’ll be reading a book from a Russian author, the book which was the runner up when we voted last time—a book adored by many around the world:
The novel that won Alexander Solzhenitsyn the 1970 Nobel Prize in Literature "for the ethical force with which he has pursued the indispensable traditions of Russian literature."
"First published in the Soviet journal Novy Mir in 1962, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich stands as a classic of contemporary literature. The story of labor-camp inmate Ivan Denisovich Shukhov, it graphically describes his struggle to maintain his dignity in the face of communist oppression. An unforgettable portrait of the entire world of Stalin's forced work camps, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich is one of the most extraordinary literary documents to have emerged from the Soviet Union and confirms Solzhenitsyn's stature as 'a literary genius whose talent matches that of Dosotevsky, Turgenev, Tolstoy'.”
Note: This translation by Harry T. Willetts is the one we recommend. This is the original, unexpurgated novel brilliantly translated by someone who worked closely with Solzhenitsyn to fully capture the power and beauty of the original Russian. This is the only English translation authorized by the Russian author. All other translations are censored versions."