The story of Ivan Denisovich, a fictional prisoner falsely accused of spying for the enemy, when he was captured by the Germans in World War II. The story is very similar to the one the author himself suffered.
The book describes the life of political prisoners (zeks) in the camps, forced to work in inhumane conditions as slaves in the service of the state, lost in the middle of the vastness of Asia.
Although something was already known about this at the time, it had never been described in detail in authoritative books: the author's main merit is to have written a short book, where he recounts this, and which managed to get it approved by the Soviet censorship. With this he also revealed to the West the internal reality of the USSR.
A small masterpiece of a book, very pleasant to read, because although it describes the incredible conditions, it highlights the human virtues of several characters, who try to be human, keeping the hope of being liberated, even showing the faith of some of them in God.
This work earned the author the Nobel Prize for Literature.