When speaking truth to power ...

... comes with a price: A World Fiercely Observed. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

He was sentenced to five years of exile "with physical labor a condition of the sentence" and sent to a collective farm near the Arctic Circle. During the days, he sowed winter wheat, split wood, herded cows and patched roofs. At night, he lit a candle in a corner of a hut with no heat, electricity or plumbing and read, using a dictionary, an anthology of English and American poetry. He discovered the wonders of Auden, Frost and Donne, and he would remember those days and nights as among the "best times" of his life.