Book Reviews › Character › Kolyma Tales
Honest review · Character
Kolyma Tales
by Varlam Shalamov
Short stories from the Arctic gold camps where Shalamov spent seventeen years: spare, pitiless, without consolation. Harder than Solzhenitsyn.
Read it if…
you want the camps without redemption.
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Skip it if…
you need hope on the page.
Try instead: Secondhand Time →
Three things you will actually use
- The camp teaches nothing good.
- Cold strips everything.
- Witness anyway.
Do this first
Read 'Through the Snow' and 'Condensed Milk'.
Our verdict
Shalamov's Kolyma.
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