Based on true events, this novel set in a Soviet prison is "both a feat of fractured storytelling and a beautiful excavation of a recent, haunting past" (Publishers Weekly).
As a political dissident, Berdzenishvili lands in jail, serving a sentence on trumped-up charges of activism and agitation. But rather than being the hell he expected, jail allows him access to a wide array of intellectuals, professionals, citizens of all walks of life, many of whom, he freely admits, he would not have had the chance to meet if he had not been in jail.