A Day in the Life of a Political Prisoner by Radio Liberty
The Belarusian Bureau of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty has issued a book ‘A Day in the Life of a Political Prisoner’, featuring 41 stories by Belarusian prisoners of conscience, starting from 1996.
According to the author of the book Hanna Sous, the edition is dedicated to Belarusian political prisoners who had to go through the things the late human rights activist Yana Paliakova refused to bear – the stench of pre-trial detention centers, the plank beds of the Akrestsina prison, days-long transportations of convicted prisoners, the solitude of overcrowded cells, the dull toil of deportation colonies, the hunger-strikes of barracks, the wasted health, homesickness and senseless cassations and, eventually, freedom, when everything seems different and hostile…
The storytellers include a poet, a painter, a doctor, former prime minister, an ambassador, as well as politicians and civil activists. All of them were imprisoned due to their political activities in the time of Lukashenka – Pavel Sharamet, Aliaksandr Kazulin, Mikhail Marynich, Yury Bandazheuski, Vasil Liavonau, Valery Shchukin, Pavel Seviarynets, Mikhail Chyhir, Vasil Staravoitau and others.
Hanna Sous says the book has much in common with Solzhenitsyn’s masterpiece ‘One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich’ – it is 41 stories, each describing one day in the life of a Belarusian political prisoner.
