Russian author and historian Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn made the world aware of the Soviet Union labor camps through his writing. Although he was exiled from Russia in 1974, Solzhenitsyn was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1970, for his ongoing commitment to promoting the awareness of government mistreatment in the Soviet Union. Sadly, Solzhenitsyn passed away in August of 2008. However, his books about the Soviet prison camps, such as the First Circle, are still very accessible and are read by people all over the world.