Contact: Rose Trabbic, Publicist, Ignatius Press, 239-867-4180, rose@ignatius.com

SAN FRANCISCO, May 19, 2011 /Christian Newswire/ -- Based on exclusive, personal interviews with Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Joseph Pearce's revised and updated biography of the renowned Russian dissident, "Solzhenitsyn," provides profound insight into a towering literary and political figure.

From his pro-Communist youth to his imprisonment in forced labor camps, from his exile in America to his return to Russia, Solzhenitsyn struggled with the weightiest questions of human existence: When a person has suffered the most terrible physical and emotional torture, what becomes of his spirit? Can science, politics and economics truly provide all of man's needs?

In his acclaimed literary and historical works, Solzhenitsyn exposed the brutality of the Soviet regime. Most famous for his novel "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" and his three-volume expose of the Russian police state, "The Gulag Archipelago," he won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1970.

Solzhenitsyn's Christian faith deeply informed his response to the inhumanity of modern materialism as it took shape in twentieth- century Russia. His critique applies not only to Communism, however, but also to the post-Christian capitalism now dominant in the West. On the spiritual, cultural, and socio-political level, his writings still have much to teach the world.

"Pearce has grasped with great insight the spiritual core of Solzhenitsyn's achievement as a writer, and indeed as a prophet to Russia and the world. He writes with warm sympathy for Russia's greatest literary voice in modern times," says David Aikman, author of "Great Souls: Six Who Changed the Century."

"The great Russian writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn is living proof that the spirit of man can overcome the tyranny of totalitarianism," says author Joseph Pearce. "After many years as a political prisoner in the Soviet Union, Solzhenitsyn was converted to Christianity and began his lifelong struggle against communism and the terrors of secular fundamentalism. Eventually winning the Nobel Prize and gaining the admiration of Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II, Solzhenitsyn emerged as one of the greatest Christian heroes of the twentieth century. My book pays homage to the great Russian writer's life of heroic struggle."

To request a review copy or an interview with author Joseph Pearce, please contact:

Rose Trabbic, Publicist, Ignatius Press, (239)867-4180 or rose@ignatius.com