Reprezentări ale suferinței carcerale în memorialistica Lenei Constante

This study, part of a broader doctoral research project, examines the representation of prison suffering in Lena Constante’s memoirs The Silent Escape (1989) and The Impossible Escape (1993), focusing on the experience of political imprisonment during the first decade of communist rule in Romania. It explores the recurring motifs of communist prison literature—including isolation, hunger, surveillance, trials, relationships among prisoners, and memories of freedom—while emphasizing Constante’s distinctive artistic response to incarceration. Drawing on her background as a stage designer and graphic artist influenced by Dimitrie Gusti’s ethnological school, Constante transforms artistic creation into a strategy of survival through drawing, imagined theatrical performances, and handcrafted objects. The study also analyzes the visual expressiveness of her memoirs, the mythic dimension of prison imagery, and the stylistic features that shape a collective memory of political detention. It argues that Constante’s attention to space, artistic survival, and narrative subjectivity distinguishes her work within Romanian prison memoir literature and makes it particularly relevant to contemporary literary studies.