Last Years and Death
The Western publishers always provided the disclaimer that Shalamov's stories were being published without the author's knowledge or consent. As his health deteriorated, he spent the last three years of his life in a house for elderly and disabled literary workers in Tushino. Shalamov died on January 17, 1982, and was interred at Kuntsevo Cemetery, Moscow.
The book was finally published on Russian soil in 1987, as a result of Mikhail Gorbachev's glasnost policy. Selections from Kolyma Tales are now mandatory reading for high school children in the Russian Federation.
Read more about this topic: Varlam Shalamov
Famous quotes containing the words years and/or death:
“Talleyrand said that two things are essential in life: to give good dinners and to keep on fair terms with women. As the years pass and fires cool, it can become unimportant to stay always on fair terms either with women or one’s fellows, but a wide and sensitive appreciation of fine flavours can still abide with us, to warm our hearts.”
—M.F.K. Fisher (b. 1908)
“If it be aught toward the general good,
Set honor in one eye, and death i’th’ other,
And I will look on both indifferently;
For let the gods so speed me as I love
The name of honor more than I fear death.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)