This brutal, shattering glimpse of the fate of millions of Russians under Stalin shook Russia and shocked the world when it first appeared. Following a typical day in a labour camp, as experienced by prisoner Ivan Denisovich Shukhov, we are taken on a harrowing journey into a world where survival is all. We discover the importance of a piece of bread or an extra bowl of soup, the incredible luxury of a book and the ingenious possibilities of a nail, a piece of string or a single match. Through Denisovich's suffering we experience incarceration, brutality, hard labour and freezing cold — and participate in the struggle of men to survive both the terrible rigours of nature and the inhumanity of the system that defines their conditions of life.