—
—
A gritty, powerful debut by author and journalist A.V. Pankov
The year is 1993. In a collapsing post-Soviet town, a former serviceman, Vasily Mikhailovich, accepts work as the director of a remote juvenile prison colony. Determined to bring order and empathy to a brutal system, he starts a programme of rehabilitation for the young boys. But he is soon thwarted by the corruption around him; as he watches the people nearby prosper through deceit and cruelty, he is forced to make a choice: to uphold his principles and risk everything, or surrender them to save his family.
Based on true accounts of children’s penal colonies that existed during the 1990s post-Soviet turmoil, Going to Zossen, or the Capitulation of Vasily Mikhailovich is a study into the bargains made by ordinary people under oppressive systems. A necessary reading for fans of Claire Keegan and Colson Whitehead.
A gritty, powerful debut by author and journalist A.V. Pankov
Based on true accounts of children’s penal colonies that existed during the 1990s post-Soviet turmoil, Going to Zossen, or the Capitulation of Vasily Mikhailovich is a study into the bargains made by ordinary people under oppressive systems. A necessary reading for fans of Claire Keegan and Colson Whitehead.
—
The year is 1993. In a collapsing post-Soviet town, a former serviceman, Vasily Mikhailovich, accepts work as the director of a remote juvenile prison colony. Determined to bring order and empathy to a brutal system, he starts a programme of rehabilitation for the young boys. But he is soon thwarted by the corruption around him; as he watches the people nearby prosper through deceit and cruelty, he is forced to make a choice: to uphold his principles and risk everything, or surrender them to save his family.
Buy the paperback
Also available as an ebook
—
“The body craved the representation of these objects — control — and though he knew all he could determine with it at this time was the time and place of his own execution, he wanted it in all its tiny magnificence.”
