In the First Circle (Russian: В круге первом, V kruge pervom; also published as The First Circle) is a novel by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn released in 1968. A more complete version of the book was published in English in 2009.The novel depicts the lives of the occupants of a sharashka (a research and development bureau made of gulag inmates) located in the Moscow suburbs. This novel is highly autobiographical.