
The Silent Escape
Three Thousand Days in Romanian Prisons
Lena Constante(Author)
University of California Press
1st Edition
Will be published approx. on 7. April 1995
Book
Hardback
257 pages
978-0-520-08209-0 (ISBN)
Description
'I have lived, alone, in a cell, 157,852,800 seconds of solitude and fear. Cause for screaming! They sentence me to live yet another 220,838,400 seconds! To live them or to die from them' - from "The Silent Escape". Victim of Stalinist-era terror, Lena Constante was arrested on trumped-up charges of 'espionage' and sentenced to twelve years in Romanian prisons. "The Silent Escape" is the extraordinary account of the first eight years of her incarceration - years of solitary confinement during which she was tortured, starved, and daily humiliated. The only woman to have endured isolation so long in Romanian jails, Constante is also one of the few women political prisoners to have written about her ordeal. Unlike other more political prison diaries, this book draws us into the practical and emotional experiences of everyday prison life. Candidly, eloquently, Constante describes the physical and psychological abuses that were the common lot of communist-state political prisoners. She also recounts the particular humiliations she suffered as a woman, including that of male guards watching her in the bathroom.
Constante survived by escaping into her mind - and finally by discovering the 'language of the walls', which enabled her to communicate with other female inmates. A powerful story of totalitarianism and human endurance, this work makes an important contribution to the literature of 'prison notebooks'.
Constante survived by escaping into her mind - and finally by discovering the 'language of the walls', which enabled her to communicate with other female inmates. A powerful story of totalitarianism and human endurance, this work makes an important contribution to the literature of 'prison notebooks'.
Reviews / Votes
"[An] expressive, desolate memoir . . ." * Publishers Weekly * "This is an important contribution to the literature of the Stalinist period in Eastern Europe, to prison narratives (joining the works of Arthur Koestler, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, and Evgenia Ginzburg), and to the literature of the human spirit. Highly recommended for all libraries." * Library Journal * "A powerful testament to the uncanny resilience of the human spirit. Constante relates in mesmerizing detail the eight years of solitary confinement that she suffered in Romanian prisons after being convicted in the Stalinist show trials of 1948. . . . It is rare for such an important historical document to be rendered with such profound artistic integrity." * Kirkus Reviews * "Constante's story vividly captures the prisoner's desperate struggle to hang onto her sanity and humanity and the remarkable victory when she and other women prisoners learned to communicate through "the language of the walls." A moving contribution to the literature of political imprisonment." * Booklist * "Constante has written a beautiful book about human endurance painfully learned; above all, it is a testament to the power of poetry to free the human spirit even when the physical body is suffering cold, hunger, and cruel degradation." * Women's Review of Books *More details
Series
Edition
First Edition
Language
English
Place of publication
Berkerley
United States
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
Cloth over boards
Dimensions
Thickness: 23 mm
Weight
635 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-520-08209-0 (9780520082090)
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Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Lena Constante, an artist and writer living in Bucharest, won the Association des Ecrivains de Langue Francaise's 1992 Prix Europeen for this book's French edition. Franklin Philip is a freelance translator living in Boston. Gail Kligman is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Los Angeles.