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speaking up for a member of a religious sect; his tooth was knocked out, and he was made to stand naked in the cold. ‘The Lawyers’ Plot’ describes what was to have been his own execution; he was saved by a bloody shake-up among the political bosses. Merzlakov’s attempt to feign paralysis in ‘Shock Therapy’ is a case that he personally witnessed. He saw the bodies dug from the ground by the American bulldozer in ‘Lend-Lease’, and ‘Condensed Milk’ describes how another convict tried to lure him into an escape attempt so as to be able to betray him to camp authorities. His correspondence with ‘Fleming’ in ‘The Used-Book Dealer’ is part of his personal archive, and ‘The Train’ describes his own attempt to return home. ‘A Pushover Job’, ‘Carpenters’, ‘Dry Rations’, ‘Sententious’, ‘Quiet’, ‘On Tick’, ‘A Piece of Meat’, ‘The Snake Charmer’, ‘Chief of Political Control’, ‘A Child’s Drawings’, ‘Magic’ and ‘Esperanto’ are all taken from his personal experience; ‘Major Pugachov’s Last Battle’, on the other hand, was not taken from his own life, although it is partly based on historical fact.
    In the late 1970s Shalamov’s health began to fail. In 1979 the Literary Fund (the department of the Writers’ Union that oversaw questions of residence, pensions and the like) managed to have him placed in an old people’s home, where he lost his vision and hearing. The degree to which he was able to comprehend what was happening around him is unclear.
    On 17 January 1982 I gave a talk on Shalamov’s life and work for the Greater Washington, DC chapter of the Russian Literary Fund. It was the coldest day in the city’s history – as if Kolyma had come to Washington – and only a handful of devoted admirers braved the weather. We did not know it at the time, but Shalamov had died that very day.
    When I learned the news I called the Moscow offices of the Soviet Writers’ Union, which refused to provide any information other than the fact that Shalamov had died and been buried. Later I received photographs of the funeral and learned that two days earlier he had been transferred from one old people’s home to another and had not survived the move.
    In late fall of 1987 I met with Sergey Zalygin, editor-in-chief of Russia’s most renowned magazine,
Novy mir
. Zalygin spoke with great optimism about reform in the Soviet Union. I countered that
Kolyma Tales
still could not be published. He seemed genuinely intrigued by my comment and promised to give the matter serious consideration; before a year had passed he brought out a selection of the
Kolyma Tales
in his magazine.
    In 1989, for the first time in sixteen years, I was issued a visa to visit the Soviet Union. As I crossed a street, using one of Moscow’s broad underground passageways, I saw a long line of people queuing up. Since consumer goods are scarce in today’s Russia and queues are a part of life, I was about to walk past without taking any notice until I saw that it was not oranges or shampoo being sold but…
Kolyma Tales
. The man standing at the head of the line purchased three copies. The woman standing behind him bought six.
    I wish to express my deep gratitude to Abraham Brumberg, Diana Glad, Leonard Meyers, Karen McDermott, Cynthia Rosenberger, Emily Tall and Josephine Woll for their help in preparing this volume.
    I owe a special debt to the very talented Susan Ashe for her numerous suggestions on style.
    In April 1990 Iraida Sirotinskaya, Shalamov’s heir, arrived to visit Washington and provided me with much of the autobiographical information provided here.
    The work on the book was made possible in part through support from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities, an independent federal agency.
    John Glad
    Washington, DC

Kolyma Tales

Through the Snow

    How is a road beaten down through the virgin snow? One person walks ahead, sweating, swearing, and