About the Book
Praise for TO BUILD A CASTLE
“Vladimir Bukovsky has written an extraordinary account of his life in the Soviet Union…. Listen closely.” —New York Times
"This is a landmark book and a human document that remains vital.” —Sir Tom Stoppard, Oscar-winning screenwriter of Shakespeare in Love
"Sometimes ironic, sometimes detached, sometimes written in cold fury, but always compelling." —The New Yorker
"A huge story we must not forget. Even inside prison, a revolt of the mind is possible." —Masha Alyokhina, co-founder of the anti-Putinist punk rock group Pussy Riot, who read To Build a Castle while serving time as a prisoner of conscience
"This book is important." —Former US President Ronald Reagan
"If human bravery were a book, it would be To Build a Castle. Bukovsky’s memoir serves as testimony to the horrors of totalitarianism, a reference manual of the Soviet gulag during the Brezhnev years, and an unforgettable tribute to the courage of dissidents like Bukovsky. Unfortunately, the book is a reminder we still very much need today, when Western moral equivalence would have us believe that such monsters no longer exist. They do, and 'To Build a Castle' is an essential guide to understanding them, and how to fight them." —Garry Kasparov, Chairman of the Human Rights Foundation
"It is one of the great books of the 20th Century." —John Podhoretz, editor of Commentary and former speechwriter for George H. W. Bush
“Bukovsky's convictions and his indomitable spirit come through strongly in this compelling narrative of his ordeal in the prisons, labor camps and psychiatric hospitals of the U.S.S.R.” —Foreign Affairs
“One of the masterpieces of the period.” —Michael Ledeen, Freedom Scholar at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies
"A gripping and evocative account of the evil empire from a man who helped bring it down." —Edward Lucas, Senior Editor, The Economist, author of The New Cold War: Putin’s Russia and the Threat to the West
"To Build a Castle is a fascinating document of its era, as well as the inspiring story of one man's courageous battle against a totalitarian state. While the era Vladimir Bukovsky chronicles has long passed, this memoir has not lost its relevance. Its insights on freedom, justice, personal responsibility, and the temptation of communist utopia remain as timely as ever. Bukovsky has an eye for both mundane and striking details that bring this tale to life, and tells his story with superb clarity, compassion, and wry humor. An engrossing and satisfying read." —Cathy Young, assistant editor at Reason, columnist for Newsday and Real Clear Politics
"Vladimir Bukovsky was the heart and soul of the struggle for human rights in the Soviet Union. In To Build a Castle, he describes in telling prose what it meant to fight against overwhelming odds, to defend principles that others thought did not exist - and to prevail." —David Satter, Journalist and author of The Less You Know the Better You Sleep: Russia's Road to Terror and Dictatorship under Yeltsin and Putin
Breathtaking insights, intensity, humor, courage, wisdom, irony, truth -- read it. —Diana West, author of American Betrayal
"This book is one of the best literary works of 20th century Russia. It was also a great inspiration to those of us who fought for freedom and human rights against the cruel Soviet communist system." —Yuri Yarim-Agaev, leading Soviet dissident and a member of Moscow Helsinki Group
"An individual man, Vladimir Bukovsky anchored his mind, life, and fate to intellectual honesty against existing torture and hell created by the Marxist-socialist-communist-collectivist mind. He is one of the few with sinew and soul to survive severe effects of a so-called "perfect system" while doing the risky work to tell the world the truth. His life work and books stand to equip and fortify the novice or expert for the ongoing fight against powers of deceit." —Janet Lynn, Five-time U.S. Ladies Figure Skating Champion; Olympic and World Bronze medalist
“One of the classic works of Soviet dissent, as relevant today as when it first appeared." —Philip Boobbyer, author of Conscience, Dissent and Reform in Soviet Russia
"Bukovsky is properly outraged, but he is also bitterly amusing." —Time Magazine
“His sense of mission mutes the prison-is-hell-type testimony we often get … what is notable here is the revolving, buzzing, feverish commitment.” —Kirkus Review
“An intensified version of the same tone projected by Solzhenitsyn.” —New York Review of Books
“This book is a panorama of Soviet life in and out of prison, seen from below; it is an enthralling account of the now-famous protest movement; it is the record of a personal odyssey of remarkable quality….There have been, and are, many extremely brave freedom fighters (more than we know) in the Soviet Union, but it is only Bukovsky who regarded imprisonment and police persecution not as an oppression to be avoided if possible (and if not, endured) but as the mark of victory, of positive achievement.” —Edward Crankshaw, author and former specialist on Soviet affairs
“The sections of Bukovsky's book dealing with his experience in Soviet prisons and camps are harrowing and brilliant, worthy of comparison with Dostoevsky.” —Irving Howe, literary critic and founding editor of Dissent magazine
“To Build a Castle...is one of the finest works of contemporary Russian literature I have ever read. Bukovsky is a highly talented writer, with a novelist's gift for characterization and conversation. His account of his life is a dissident... is no mere cataloging of horrors, but a very human saga the tells, in our way, the old story of man's spirit refusing to be defeated by man's cruelty. Bukovsky's sense of humor, of detachment and irony, elevates his memoirs to a work of art.... His vignettes of daily Soviet life, its bleakness and frustration, tell us more about modern Russia than all the textbooks with their dry statistics. I really can't say enough about the book.” —Philip Caputo, author of A Rumor of War