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About
Diary of 66 is one woman's triumph over tragedy, and also a warning about the often-deadly consequences of corruption, in all of its shapes and forms. A young Romanian rock music journalist leaves home on the night of October 30, 2015, to go to a Goodbye to Gravity concert. She wants to write a review about the gig, to help promote the band, which is considered Romania's rising star on the local metal scene. Rock music has a troubling history of repression in the ex-communist country, and she wants to bring her contribution to dismantling the prejudice that surrounds it. She never gets to write the piece and the band doesn't finish the show either. A violent fire erupts in the Colectiv Club during the concert, trapping the audience inside. Over 180 people are severely injured and, in the days and months following the fire, 65 people lose their lives. Alexandra could have been number 66, but she survives against all odds. Diary of 66 is her memoir about the night of the fire and everything that came after it: her fight against death in the catastrophically ill-equipped hospitals in Romania, that lied about their incompetence and about the presence of dangerous multidrug resistant germs to protect the corrupted Government, her struggle to get appropriate care after she's discharged with open wounds and abandoned by the medical system, her journey towards recovery, and her life as a survivor of a national tragedy that made international headlines.
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Reviews
"A real life 'tales from the Crypt' written from the sinister 'hospital of the neverhealing', with Chuck Palahniuk's pen, dipped in Edgar Allan Poe's ink."
Marius Chivu
"This memoir will hit you like a ton of bricks. It's painful, graphic, and so real. The abuse, the filth, and the lies seen through Alexandra's eyes brought back that deep feeling of hatred for the corrupt political administration, and for those who choose a profession not out of empathy but out of the pursuit of money and social status."
Diana Livesay, investigative journalist
"I've never encountered a more convincing description of physical and moral Hell in any of the literature I've read so far. This is not just a book. It's a necessary historical document for every Romanian, and a piece of writing that can easily hold its own among names like Evghenia Ghinzburg or Primo Levi."
Doru Castaian, professior, translator, editor