Comradely Greetings ─ The Prison Letters of Nadya and Slavoj

In association with Philosophie Magazine

”We are the rebels asking for the storm, and believing that truth is only to be found in an endless search ... Two years of prison for Pussy Riot is our tribute to a destiny that gave us sharp ears, allowing us to sound the note A when everyone else is used to hearing G flat.”

In an extraordinary exchange of letters, Slovenian philosopher Slavoj ?i?ek and imprisoned Pussy Riot member Nadezhda Tolokonnikova discuss artistic subversion, political activism, and the future of democracy via the ideas of Hegel, Deleuze, Nietzsche, and even Laurie Anderson. Touching, erudite, sharp, and worldly, their correspondence unfolds with poetic urgency.

Nadya Tolokonnikova is a Russian conceptual artist, activist, and one of the founding members of Pussy Riot. Sentenced to two years’ imprisonment for her political activities, she was until recently held captive in a prison hospital in Siberia.

Slavoj ?i?ek is a Slovenian philosopher and cultural critic. He is a professor at the European Graduate School, International Director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities, Birkbeck College, University of London, and a senior researcher at the Institute of Sociology, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. His books include Living in the End Times; First as Tragedy, Then as Farce; In Defense of Lost Causes; six volumes of the Essential ?i?ek; and many more.