Alexander Solzhenitsyn was born Kislovodsk, RSFSR. He studied mathematics and physics as a young man, as well as literature. He served with distinction in the Soviet Army during World War II, but after the war, his criticism of Stalin led to his arrest. Solzhenitsyn spend eight years in labor camps, and was released in 1953. In 1962, with the approval of Soviet Premier Khrushchev, he published One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, an account of life in the Soviet Gulag.
He denounced Soviet censorship, and his later books were banned. In 1970 he was awarded the Nobel Prize. Eventually his dissident postures became too much for the Soviet government, and in 1974, Solzhenitsyn was expelled.
Throughout the years of his exile, Solzhenitsyn never stopped speaking out against Soviet Communism, and he was eventually permitted to return to his country after the fall of Communism.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn: A Century in His Life