O primeiro círculo

The novel details the life of the occupants of a gulag prison camp located in the Moscow suburbs, the Marfino sharashka. Many of the prisoners (zeks) are technicians or academics who have been arrested under Article 58 of the RSFSR Penal Code in Stalin's purges following the Second World War. Unlike inhabitants of other hard labor camps of the Gulag system, the sharashka zeks are adequately fed and enjoy good working conditions.



The title is an allusion to Dante's first circle of Hell in The Divine Comedy[1], wherein the philosophers of Greece live in a walled green garden. They are unable to enter Heaven, but enjoy a small space of relative freedom in the heart of Hell.

Literatura Estrangeira / Romance