First appeared in the Boston Book Review.
(Date approximate).
Each day he went to bed exhausted at seven P.M., to wake
up after one A.M. quite refreshed, and at once resume work. At nine A.M. he
would stop, then move into a whole new day's work, finishing at six when he prepared
a meal. When he became ill and was running a fever, he still chopped wood,
stoked the stove, and did part of his writing standing up, with his back
pressed against the hot tiles of the stove "in lieu of mustard
plasters." His single goal, even should it cost him his life, was to
finish the history of Russia's enslavement.
D.M. Thomas, "Alexander Solzhenitsyn: A Century in
his Life"
HB: Why did you write a biography of Alexander
Solzhenitsyn?
DMT: Well, I was invited to.