Tatsiana Niadbai, head of the Belarusian PEN, announced on Facebook the release of the new book by former political prisoner and lawyer Maksim Znak.
"The Colonists" is a continuation of Maksim Znak's book "Zekameron" and a new collection of short stories from the world of imprisonment. While the first book mainly took place in a pre-trial detention center, the heroes of "The Colonists" now find themselves in a correctional colony — a world with its own laws, rituals, hierarchies, absurdity, and special language.
These facetiæ are funny, bitter, sometimes almost unbelievable episodes of prison life, where cruelty and compassion, fear and humor, humiliation and human dignity coexist. Znak carefully observes people on both sides of the prison system and portrays it not only as a mechanism of punishment but also as a distinct world where absurdity gradually becomes the norm, and a person learns to live in abnormal circumstances.
The epigraph to the book is taken from Jules Verne's "The Mysterious Island": its characters refuse to consider themselves shipwrecked and call themselves colonists. In a correctional colony, apathy and downshifting are more often observed, but there are exceptions — a person tries not only to survive on the "island" imposed on them but also to retain the ability to think, laugh, notice others, and remain themselves. And so, the book suggests how light can be found in the darkest places.
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