An English translation of an Italian prison memoir which recounts the author's experiences of interrogation and torture by Fascist police and the Gestapo, during the Second World War.
The World Is a Prison is Guglielmo Petroni's story of survival and growth, an account of his experiences and a meditation on their meaning for himself, for his compatriots, and for an entire country. Terror, uncertainty, the fear of death, and the brutality he encounters at nearly every turn are all described in concrete terms, but the author's restrained tone, informed by a sense of paradox and the absurd, conveys a depth of feeling that makes this prison memoir all the more remarkable.