Alexander Solzhenitsyn was a Russian writer and dissident, best known for his works that exposed the harsh realities of life in the Soviet Union. Born in 1918, he served as a soldier during World War II but was later imprisoned for criticizing the government. His experiences in the Gulag labor camps inspired his most famous book, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, which highlighted the brutality of the Soviet regime. Solzhenitsyn's writings played a significant role in raising awareness about political repression and human rights abuses in the USSR. He received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1970 and continued to write until his death in 2008, leaving a lasting impact on literature and political thought.