The Zone: A Prison Camp Guard's Story

Zona is a sharply observed, sharply funny, and sharply written account of Dovlatov's time as a prison guard in Komi. It is a pleasure to read a modern writer who can capture the absurdity of not only Soviet life, but of life in general, with such facile humanity and humor. Notable not only for hilarious stories, such as a theatrical tribute to Lenin meticulously rehearsed and staged for Communist party leaders by various camp recidivists, but also for the perfectly captured vernacular in his dialogue, The Zone is a beautiful book. Dovlatov captures the reality of life--the pathos and the comical incongruencies, sometimes both in the same moment, in the same phrase. I have read that this is his most serious work--if that's true, I will be reading many more Dovlatov books in the future.

My english is very bad so i will be short. Dovlatov- real rude man. He talks about russia very precisely. But i think that american it will be very difficult to understand him. We too different.

GUITU- Glavnoye Upravlenie Ispravitelno Trudovimi Ucherezhdeniiami (Soviet Department of Corrections). Read the book, it is good and shows the other part of the prison life, never written about by Solzhenitsin.