Literature that is not the breath of contemporary society, that dares not transmit the pains and fears of that society, that does not warn in time against threatening moral and social dangers—such literature does not deserve the name of literature; it is only a façade. Such literature loses the confidence of its own people, and its published works are used as wastepaper instead of being read.
ATTRIBUTION:
Alexander Solzhenitsyn (b. 1918), Russian novelist. Open letter, May 16, 1967, to the Fourth Soviet Writers’ Congress. “The Struggle Intensifies,” Solzhenitsyn: A Documentary Record, ed. Leopold Labedz (1970).
