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It was his experience in the camps that lead him to write
Alexander Solzhenitsyn was the man who brought the horror of the Soviet prison and labour camps to the world's attention.
He was a towering literary figure who won the Nobel prize for literature in 1970.
He himself spent eight years in labour camps.
It was his novel "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" about the realities of camp life which first brought him fame.
He spent 20 years in exile in the US and returned home only in 1994, after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Irina Kirillova, a lecturer in Russian studies at Cambridge University, used to be Solzhenitsyn's interpreter after he was expelled.
The World Today's Mark Whitaker asked her how he would be remembered:
Listen Listen to Irina Kirillova (3 mins 43 secs)
The BBC's Vincent Dowd looks back at the life and career of Alexander Solzhenitsyn:
Listen Listen to Vincent Dowd (6 mins 5 secs)
First broadcast 4 August 2008
