letters from Ales tagged posts

Ales Bialiatski has been living literature as he waits for spring to arrive. In correspondence with friends he jokes about the sheer number of notes he has written recently and talks about the sources of his inspiration.

“I now have a disease known as graphomania,” he writes. “Whenever I read something, I have the desire to write about it. And I know that my writing will stop as soon as I am released because, as usual, I won’t have enough time for it.”

Ales writes that he is now savoring the last pages of Siarhei Dubavets’s “The Studio. A History of One Miracle.” “I am hooked on this book since I know a good half of the heroes in it. So I’m only reading a little bit at a time. This book is very sincere and important.” Ales later notes that it was this book that inspired...

This month the political prisoner Ales Bialiatski received a message from the Canadian Province of Quebec. Normand de Bellefeuille, the famous representative of contemporary French Canadian literature sent Bialiatski his collection of poetry titled “Mon Bruit” (My Noise) inscribed by him.

In his inscription, de Bellefeuille appeals to Bialiatski as a literary colleague:

 “To Ales, an unknown friend, far off yet near to me.

It happens that people who have supposedly mastered words suddenly find themselves at a loss for them. They slip away or struggle to break free…. Then only one thing is left—to testify to your feelings and unending solidarity...