In The Torture Camp on Paradise Street, Ukrainian journalist and writer Stanislav Aseyev details his experience as a prisoner from 2015 to 2017 in a modern-day concentration camp overseen by the Federal Security Bureau of the Russian Federation (FSB) in the Russian-controlled city of Donetsk. This memoir recounts an endless ordeal of psychological and physical abuse, including torture and rape, inflicted upon the author and his fellow inmates over the course of nearly three years of illegal incarceration spent largely in the prison called Izoliatsiia (Isolation). Aseyev also reflects on how a human can survive such atrocities and reenter the world to share his story.

Since February 2022, numerous cases of illegal detainment and extreme mistreatment have been reported in the Ukrainian towns and villages occupied by Russian forces during the full-scale invasion. These and other war crimes committed by Russian troops speak to the horrors wreaked upon Ukrainians forced to live in Russian-occupied zones. It is important to remember, however, that the torture and killing of Ukrainians by Russian security and military forces began long before 2022. Rendered deftly into English, Aseyev's compelling account offers a critical insight into the operations of Russian forces in the occupied territories of Ukraine.

About the Author
Stanislav Aseyev is a Donetsk-born Ukrainian writer and journalist. In addition to two books recounting his experience under Russian occupation in eastern Ukraine, he is the author of a collection of poetry, a play, and a novel. Under the pen name Stanislav Vasin, he published short reports in the Ukrainian press on the outbreak of Russian-sponsored military hostilities in Donbas. Arrested and unlawfully imprisoned by separatist militia forces for "extremism" and "spying," Aseyev was held captive and subjected to intermittent torture. In 2021, he was awarded the prestigious Taras Shevchenko National Prize for In Isolation. Zenia Tompkins is an American literary translator and founder of The Tompkins Agency for Ukrainian Literature in Translation, a nonprofit literary agency and translation house dedicated to promoting contemporary Ukrainian literature in the Anglophone world. Nina Murray is a poet and an award-winning translator of Ukrainian literature, including works by Oksana Zabuzhko, Oksana Lutsyshyna, Serhiy Zhadan, and Lesia Ukrainka. She is the author of several poetry collections and a career member of the U.S. Foreign Service.

Reviews

A chilling and worthwhile read.

-- Lilian Posner * Foreign Policy *
A difficult read but an important one... This book allows us to understand the Russian occupation and everything that has been going on since Russia forcibly invaded Ukraine in 2014... Aseyev writes with beautiful clarity and philosophical richness. His book is a testament to the dignity and the strength of the human spirit. -- Sasha Dovzhyk * Five Books *


Awards
Winner of Peterson Literary Fund Translated Book Award 2023 (United States).



Book Information
ISBN 9780674291089
Author Stanislav Aseyev
Format Paperback
Page Count 304
Imprint Harvard University Press
Publisher Harvard University Press