'Zekameron'comes from'Zek'meaning prisoner and is a word-play on Boccaccio's Decameron.
'He came back from interrogation looking like death. Some people look better than he did when they're being put in their coffin.
"What happened then Did they stick any other articles of the Criminal Code on you Or break your jaw"
"Nothing like that. I've got toothache..."
The 100 tales in Zekameron are based on the 14th Century Decameron,but Znak is closer to Beckett than to Boccaccio. Banality and brutality vie with the human ability to overcome oppression. Znak's stories in different voices chart 100 days in prison in Belarus today. The tone is laconic,ironic; the humour dry. The stories bear witness to resistance and self-assertion and the genuine warmth and appreciation of fellow prisoners.
Publisher: Scotland Street PressISBN: 9781910895757Number of pages: 272Weight: 243 gDimensions: 198 x 129 x 19 mm
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It is...encouraging to read how Znak does not let himself be beaten down even in prison,how he uses the weapons that dictators like Lukashenko detest most: humour,wit,publicity.
It's a terse account of painful experience,prison,bewilderment; hugely atmospheric and extremely funny - full of dry wit and small biting observations. And what the book says about how we must write because speaking is too painful is so brilliantly drawn.
... once,Znak dreams of a reader out there. At least one reader of the letters they all write here and of which they do not know whether they will ever arrive. At least one reader seems certain: the censor. Znak imagines him as the ideal reader,who keeps all the prisoners'wonderful letters in a special place....We wish this book the whole world as its censor.
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