And there is another planet, like ours. They can’t see the sky, on that planet. Because their atmosphere is like a mirror. They look into the sky and see only themselves and the things they’ve made. So everything in their world can easily be understood. All they want is to be safe and comfortable. They fatten themselves on poison food. And when they look into the sky, they are struck dumb. By the greatness of their works.

At the height of the Cold War, dissident writer Gavriil is detained in a Soviet mental prison as a punishment for

protesting against the government. His only escape is the prison library, a treasure store of banned literature available to the patients, but off-limits to the prison staff. His interrogator, Yurchak, offers to protect him from torture in exchange for sharing the forbidden stories. Their agreement will help them both find a kind of freedom, at the risk of their lives.

Inspired by an incident in the life of writer, activist and neurophysiologist Vladimir Bukovsky, Silent Planet is a love story about our love of stories, a passionate and poetic fable about the power of literature in a world in which the wrong words can get you killed.

Eve Leigh

Books