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:
“I have started to say
“A quarter of a century”
Or “thirty years back”
About my own life.”
—Philip Larkin (1922–1986)
“Then is it sin
To rush into the secret house of death
Ere death dare come to us?”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)