This novel represents a statement or plea against the death penalty. However, it is a plea that does not fall into the vainness of straightforward slogans. Rather, it strikes its roots deep within the human spirit, where it concerns the soul of those who face death with a conscience.

Horrifying thousands of strange thoughts, ghosts and memories.

As much as this literary masterpiece is able to imagine its historical context with unparalleled accuracy, it also succeeds, through the subtlety of its distinctive craftsmanship, in opening up a horizon for reading it in various future eras, as intelligent reading makes it a present event that never ends.

An arrow that always points to what is unbreakable in our human essence. Victor Hugo takes us on a wondrous journey into the darkness of prison cells, the memories of their inmates, their beheaded dreams, and their escape into writing as the final act of resistance and the free leap most attached to life. Here, in these astonishing pages, a particular type of life locked behind bars creates its own style of writing and regret. As our moral and criminal hammers hang for a moment—which may extend endlessly—we confront, with astonished eyes, our human features in the image of the condemned man at the guillotine.

Ashraf Al-Qarqani