Michail Chodorkovskij “Mina Medfangar” (in Swedish)
Swedish version of “My fellow prisoners” by Mikhail Khodorkovsky was published in by Ersatz in March 2015.
The book was widely reviewed by the media in Sweden.
“The stories give a dreadful picture of lawlessness that rides unchecked, where the theft of a bottle of wine can result in death in prison. A man who was put in jail for a misdemeanour is promised probation if he pleads guilty to the robbery of an old woman. The man refuses; to harm an old person is against his morals, he says. Instead of release, he is put in an isolation cell. The stories are entirely unsentimental. In its simplicity the language is especially striking. It is a small book but it has a big weight.” (Ernst Klein, Östgöta Correspondenten)
“Despite his 10 years in jail, Khodorkovsky’s book is barely 100 pages long. He doesn’t write directly about himself, but, instead, gives brief portraits of his co-prisoners. They are sympathetic short pieces in which he describes a few inmates, and how they came to be in prison, oftentimes because of social factors, rather than personal malevolence, which led to their committing a crime. Stylistically he reminds me of Varlam Shalamov” (Per Leander, Internationalen).