Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
The title is an allusion to Dante's first circle of Hell in The Divine Comedy, where the philosophers of Greece, and other non-Christians, live in a walled green garden. They are unable to enter Heaven, as they were born before Christ, but enjoy a small space of relative freedom in the heart of Hell. The story is about prisoners (zeks) who are technicians or academics. They have been arrested under Article 58 of the RSFSR Penal Code in Joseph Stalin's purges after the Second World War.