The Zone: Prsn Cmp Grd [Hardcover]

Sergei Dovlatov (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 177 pages
• Publisher: Knopf; 1st edition (September 12, 1985)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0394535227
• ISBN-13: 978-0394535227
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.7 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,309,178 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars GUITU-from the eyes of the correctional officer!!!, June 7, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Zone: Prsn Cmp Grd (Hardcover)

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.

5.0 out of 5 stars My Worthy "Discovery" of Dovlatov, June 23, 2005

By 

Yan Timanovsky (Brooklyn, NY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Zone: Prsn Cmp Grd (Hardcover)

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.

2 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars our greatest man, April 27, 2002

By 

wwwwwww (Russia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Zone: Prsn Cmp Grd (Hardcover)

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.