The importance of Shalamov's Kolyma Stories

Varlam Shalamov's Kolyma Stories (written ca 1950-60, recently published in English by NYRB, ed and tr. by Donald Rayfield) are a work of witness and testimony; the many short entries are minimalist fiction, each a brief sketch from prison life (Shalamov was in a Siberian labor camp in the 1940s for about 6 years, when he was about 40 years old), stand up well alongside any short fiction of the period - each is clearly written, makes a dramatic point, and moves on - though they break no new ground in fictional technique. As works of art they don't measure up to the standards and classics of the century - from Joyce through Hemingway to Munro and Trevor - but cumulatively they constitutes of work of incredible power, insight, and significance. It's hard to read them one after another - each is so painful, a series of tales of barbarous cruelty and the struggle for survival in the worst of conditions - forced hard labor in freezing conditions, with inadequate food, clothing, and shelter - the men pitched against one another as they fight over the smallest scraps of nourishment and comfort. Shalamov only rarely speaks of the politics and tyranny that sent him and millions of others into these labor camps, but the horrors of the Stalin regime are the constant background music; the political prisoners - sent into exile for the most petty of "crimes" against the state, many betrayed by others looking out for themselves - often are pitted against the professional criminals, far more wary and experienced, in the struggle for survival. So even if these stories or sketches or what you will had no literary merit and collection of memories and testimony would still be a powerful work of witness and indictment. Yet they do stand up well, each on its own; over the course of the book we don't see character development nor do we see a story arc, but we do see dozens, maybe hundreds, of incidents, recounted with cool detachment, that create overall a story of horror and oppression as powerful as any other work from its era, or perhaps any.