Narrative
Споведзь
Not translated into English
Larysa Heniyush · 1993
Synopsis
The memoirs of Larysa Heniyush, a Belarusian poet handed over to the Soviet services in 1948 and sent to the gulag. She recounts the investigation she underwent, then life in the labour camps, where she lived among prisoners convicted without being guilty, often for nothing more than love of their homeland, and expresses with intense emotion the feelings and ordeals of a woman caught in the Soviet machine.
Context
The book appeared in Minsk in 1993, ten years after the author's death. An autobiographical narrative, it gives ample room to a woman's voice, to the emotions and bitter experiences of a political prisoner. In the camp, Larysa Heniyush had also secretly written poems, gathered in a handwritten collection that she bound and illustrated herself, published in London in 1992. The book has been translated neither into French nor into English.
Who it is for
For hearing a woman's voice on the gulag, that of a poet who remained faithful to a free Belarus until her death.
Prizes and reception
The weekly Nasha Niva regards it as one of the finest works of Belarusian literature, for its strength and its courage.