Goli Otok: The Island of Death

Goli Otok is an Adriatic island where many "Cominformists" were incarcerated after Tito's break with Stalin. Markovski is a Macedonian poet who turned against Tito, served a five-year sentence on the island, was released in 1961, and now lives in Bulgaria. There is little reason to doubt his descriptions, written at the time, of the tortures and horrors to which prisoners were subjected. The political commentary is pure Stalinist propaganda, vintage 1949.