The Road to Damascus, and chronicles »the history of a failed confession.«

Doina Jelea’s book (Romanian only, yet), and chronicles »the history of a failed confession.« Frant Tandara, a former torturer in Romanian communist jails, is willing to confess his crimes to a journalist and former political prisoner.

This droll book is not what the title might suggest. The surfaces of the story are, at first, so different and inviting… companions sharing a train ride in the countryside, an outdoor meal on a gorgeous clear day, home-grown food so fresh you can taste it. But beneath the sunny surface, it ends in candid talk-between an ex-Securitate torturer, a former victim, and a curious journalist-about how much "hand labor" had to go into the manufacture of mass confession during the worst excesses of the Communist era. So it is that one afternoon in the disturbingly everyday life of Frant Tandara, (based on the memoirs of retired secret policeman Franz Tander) forms the basis of a dramatic sketch. A central irony of Tandara's encounter with victim and journalist is that the former master of other people's confessions fails to make his own confession convincing to his guests.

Look forward for the movie by Lucian Pintilie, An Afternoon With A Torturer / Der Nachmittag eines Folterknecht / Dupa-amiaza unui tortionar (Romania/France 2001)

RS link:
http://rapidshare.com/files/103990310/The_Road_to_Damascus_-_Doina_Jela.pdf.html