Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | For The Good Of The Cause | 1964 | Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn | Buy |
| 2 | Cancer Ward | 1967 | Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn | Buy |
| 3 | In the First Circle | 1968 | Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn | Buy |
| 4 | Lenin in Zürich | 1975 | Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn | Buy |
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s standalone novels are rooted in his years of imprisonment and his observations of Soviet society. Cancer Ward (1967) is set in a hospital in Soviet Central Asia where patients from different walks of life are thrown together, and the ward becomes a microcosm of the country. In the First Circle (1968) takes place in a sharashka, one of the special prisons where the Soviet government put scientists and engineers to work on state projects under relatively better conditions than the general camps.
For The Good Of The Cause (1964) is a shorter work about a technical school whose new building is seized by party officials. Lenin in Zürich (1975), published after Solzhenitsyn’s exile, is a historical portrait of Lenin during his years in Switzerland before the Revolution, drawn from research that also fed into The Red Wheel.