<|im_start|>user
What is Alexander Solzhenitsyn's book "The Gulag Archipelago" about?<|im_end|>
<|im_start|>assistant
"The Gulag Archipelago" is a three-volume non-fiction text by Russian writer and Soviet dissident Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn published in 1973. 

The books cover life in what is often known as the Gulag, the Soviet forced labor camp system, through a narrative which was constructed from various sources including reports, interviews, statements, diaries, legal documents, and Solzhenitsyn's own experience as a Gulag prisoner. The book describe the life of a prisoner starting with the arrest, trial, and initial internment, continuing with the transport to the Gulag, the treatment of prisoners and their general living conditions, slave labor gangs and the technical prison camp system, camp rebellions and strikes, such as the Kengir uprising, the practice of internal exile following the completion of the original prison sentence, and the ultimate but not guaranteed release of the prisoner. Along the way, Solzhenitsyn's examination details the trivial and commonplace events of an average prisoner's life, as well as specific and noteworthy events during the history of the Gulag system, including revolts and uprisings. 

While supporters such as Russian president Vladimir Putin calling the book "much-needed" and Russian schools issued the book as required reading beginning in 2009, considerable criticism has been levied against the book for factual accuracy, one of the most prominent critic being Solzhenitsyn's ex-wife Natalya Reshetovskaya, who claimed the book as "folklore" and "not in fact the life of the country and not even the life of the camps but the folklore of the camps." Solzhenitsyn has also been criticized for his view of the creation of a pan-Slavic state and his vociferous opposition to Ukrainian independence.<|im_end|>
