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A review by freagh
Swimming in the Dark by Tomasz Jedrowski
medium-paced
4.0
‘I had been a coward, compared to them. I had hidden under window ledges, in kitchen closets, I had not been in the streets demanding my right to be heard. Now, I was an ocean away, wearing a new suit. I wondered about your role in all this, what kind of pact you’ve made with yourself. Because we all make one, even the best of us, and it’s rarely immaculate, no matter how hard we try.’
‘I thought of the photographer and his courage, imagining how the photo had made it out of the country, a roll of film smuggled into West Germany in a secret compartment or an empty tube of toothpaste. Anonymous figures trapped on the wrong side of history, compressed and rolled up inside a stranger’s pocket. No matter what happens in the world, however brutal or dystopian a thing, not all is lost if there are people out there risking themselves to document it.’
‘I thought of the photographer and his courage, imagining how the photo had made it out of the country, a roll of film smuggled into West Germany in a secret compartment or an empty tube of toothpaste. Anonymous figures trapped on the wrong side of history, compressed and rolled up inside a stranger’s pocket. No matter what happens in the world, however brutal or dystopian a thing, not all is lost if there are people out there risking themselves to document it.’