Solzhenitsyn collection released in Russia

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MOSCOW, Nov. 18 (UPI) -- The complete works of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, called the "greatest living Russian writer," will be published for the first time in his native Russia.

The Times of London Saturday said Solzhenitsyn's works include a new edition of the seminal 1,800-page nonfiction narrative, "The Gulag Archipelago."

This time around, it will contain names of dissidents and prisoners that provided the writer with on-going accounts of the Soviet slave labor and concentration camp system, plus his own experiences in a Gulag camp.

The book was written between 1958 and 1968 but was not published in the West until 1973.

Fans can look forward to a new book as well. Boris Pasternak, director of the Vremya publishing house, told The Times that there will be an unpublished memoir that was written during the time that Solzhenitsyn worked on his series, "The Red Wheel."

The project to get Solzhenitsyn's work out appeared to have the official blessing from the Kremlin, the Times said. A state-owned bank is a sponsor of the publishing event.

Solzhenitsyn, 88, was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1970. He spent 16 years in exile until Mikhail Gorbachev gave him back his citizenship. He returned home to a hero's welcome in 1994.