Solitary

We learn more every year about the damaging effects of solitary confinement. This unquestionably cruel and unusual punishment leaves prisoners with no human contact, sometimes for years at a time, and it nearly always leads to lasting trauma. In *Solitary*, Maurizio Torchio takes on the daunting task of narrating this most isolating experience, one in which the captive is not only cut off from society in the walls of a prison, but from human contact itself. Within this closed world seemingly out of time, the prisoner still yearns for human contact. Ultimately, this desire is a form of hope, reminding us that ineluctable human qualities survive even in the most inhumane spaces.