Book launch: "Калі я выйду на волю" (When I'm Out of Here) by Hanna Komar

The book is a documentary recap of Hanna's 9 days spent in a Belarusian jail for a peaceful demonstration in September 2020. Through her own prison diary and the testimonies of others a story of police violence, civil resistance and solidarity among Belarusians is told. This book can be a valuable source for those interested in or studying the Belarusian protests of 2020, women's movement, solidarity in the protest movement and sisterhood. The book is written in Belarusian and Russian.

Bio: Hanna Komar is a Belarusian poet, writer, translator and activist, a PhD student at the University of Brighton, School of Humanities and Social Science. She explores the potential of poetry to enable Belarusian women to share their experience of gender-based violence and patriarchy, using an autoethnographic approach.

Hanna has published five poetry collections: “Страх вышыні” [Fear of Heights], a collection of docu poetry “Мы вернемся” [We’ll Return] and “Вызвалі або бяжы” [Set Me Free or Run] in Belarusian, as well as a bilingual collections Recycled and Ribwort. Her work lays bare the experience of being a girl, then a young woman, growing up in a strongly patriarchal authoritarian country and standing up against dictatorship. A member of PEN Belarus and an honorary member of English PEN. Freedom of Speech 2020 Prize laureate from the Norwegian Authors’ Union. Hanna has an MA in Creative Writing: Writing the City from the University of Westminster.