Riot Days

Author Maria Alyokhina
Narrator Kate Lock
Publisher Penguin Books Ltd
Run Time 6 hours and 44 minutes
Format Audio
Genre Autobiography: historical, political and military, Corruption in politics, government and society, Feminism and feminist theory, Human rights, civil rights, Memoirs, Pressure groups, protest movements and non-violent action.

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What to expect

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Riot Days by Maria Alyokhina, read by Kate Lock.

From activist, Pussy Riot member and freedom fighter Maria Alyokhina, a raw, hallucinatory, passionate account of her arrest, trial and imprisonment in a penal colony in the Urals for standing up for what she believed in.

'One of the most brilliant and inspiring things I've read in years. Couldn't put it down. This book is freedom' Chris Kraus, author of I Love Dick

People who believe in freedom and democracy think it will exist forever.

That is a mistake. What happened in Russia - what happened to me - could happen anywhere.

When I was jailed for political protest, I learned that prison doesn't just teach you to follow the rules. It teaches you to think that you can never break them.

It's inevitable that the prison gates will open at some point. But this doesn't mean that you leave the 'prisoner' category and go straight into the category of 'the free'.

Freedom does not exist unless you fight for it every day.

This is the story about how I made a choice.

We are all Pussy Riot.
And actions break fear.

'To Back Down an Inch is to Give Up a Mile'.

Critics Review

Reading: RIOT DAYS, by #PussyRiot member MariaAlyokhina. A women’s prison memoir like no other! One tough cookie!
@MargaretAtwood
A future cult classic
Vogue
In oppressive political systems, some of the most effective weapons are sarcasm and dark humour. It is exactly these weapons that are employed by Masha Alyokhina in the brilliantly written Riot Days. Once you begin reading, you are completely disarmed, unable to put it down until the last page
Marina Abramovic
Riot Days could so easily have been a straightforward, from-the-horse’s-mouth confessional account of one of the most publicised political protests of recent years. Alyokhina takes on a far greater challenge: creating a text that is not just a reflection on a piece of art, but becomes one itself, and one that, in many places, lives up to her own criteria of protest: that it must be “desperate, sudden, and joyous”
Guardian
The literary equivalent of guerrilla street art
The Times
Urgent and bold
Financial Times
[An] energetic and enjoyable prison diary … A search for meaningful protest in an age in which presidents often appear to be playful performance artists
Spectator
Alyokhina’s eye for surreal detail gives Riot Days a welcome dose of dark humor … Through the chinks in the abusive system, Alyokhina glimpses human beings
The New York Times Book Review
Strong, brave, honest, touching, bitter and sad
Vladimir Sorokin, master of contemporary Russian literature
One of the most brilliant and inspiring things I’ve read in years. Couldn’t put it down. This book is freedom
Chris Kraus, author of 'I Love Dick'
Accessible and inspiring
Huck Magazine
Fascinating and important … What’s most striking is its universality
Refinery 29
Iconoclastic
Livres Hebdo
One of the most brilliant and inspiring things I’ve read in years. Couldn’t put it down. This book is freedom
Chris Kraus, author of I Love Dick

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