Varlam Shalamov

Sarah J. Young (University College London)

Ed. by Neil Cornwell, University of Bristol
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 2.2.2.00: Post-1917 Writing and Culture in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, 1917-present.
Vol. editors: Neil Cornwell (University of Bristol), Roman Koropeckyj (University of California, Los Angeles), Andrei Rogatchevski (UiT - The Arctic University of Norway)

Dates

Born 1 Jul 1907
Died 17 Jan 1982
Activity 1924-1982

Places

Born in Russia
Active in Russia

Activities

Primary

Journalist
Novelist
Poet

Resources

Shalamov's Works

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Varlam Tikhonovich Shalamov was a twentieth-century Russian poet, memoirist and short story writer, the main body of whose work reflects the profound effect of the seventeen years he spent in the Stalinist Gulag, including fourteen years in the notorious camps of Kolyma in the Russian Far East. Never part of the dissident movement that gave fellow ex-convicts, notably Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, international renown and a huge readership, Shalamov was ill-served by the piecemeal publication of his most significant work,

Kolymskie rasskazy

[

Kolyma Tales

, first edition, London: 1978]. Finally published in full in 1992,

Kolyma Tales

, six collections of short stories depicting life in the Gulag, has gained a reputation not only as the high point of the Russian tradition of labour camp writing,…

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2676 words

Citation: Young, Sarah J.. "Varlam Shalamov". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 20 November 2009 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=12074, accessed 21 November 2024.]