Hellish Writing

Is incarceration a necessary experience writers need to undergo to produce psychological novels of the highest order? Or is physical terror an escape from the burden of thought and mental pain? Does the burden of guilt from which there is no escape in private life drive a writer inwards to discover reserves of strength and resilience?

How does one explore the possibilities of human behaviour in inhuman circumstances? Going by the experiences of writers who did time in the Gulag and the Nazi concentration camps, intense suffering and mental anguish either disintegrated a personality or precipitated it.

Primo Levi, the Italian chemist-turned-writer produced a crop of books on his concentration camp experiences providing fresh insights into the human mind. Although primarily a scientist, Levi had a deep interest in literature which provided him solace during his confinement in Auschwitz and which resulted in The Search for Roots: A Personal Anthology (Allen Lane Press,