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2023: Salomé was bullied for years and no one did a single thing to help her. One day she finally snapped.
2023: Salomé was bullied for years and no one did a single thing to help her. One day she finally snapped.
Salomé’s counsellor, the man whose good opinion is key to her release, is best known for his racist gaffes on reality TV. Her father has recently been diagnosed with liver cancer and her elder sister Miriam’s main preoccupation is to get out of their small, close-minded village as soon as possible. Both at home and in the unit, things are unbearably tense.
Salomé finds it hard to keep her temper and harder still to think about the crime she is charged with committing. But as time passes, she finds new strength to delve into the reasons for her rage and arrive at her own understanding of punishment, penitence and the paradoxical demands made on her existence as a Black woman.
Netherlands
Location is not a key factor in the novel. It is set in the Netherlands but is rather the story of a black woman in the prison system as a product of society and of the prison service which could happen anywhere.
The Donut is the prison in the book but this is fictional. It is probably a symbol of so many real places in this country and around the world.
Destination: Netherlands Author/guide: Simone Atangana Bekono Departure Time: 2023
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