Litertaure can instil hope. Hope for a better tomorrow that will emerge after the national lockdown. In moments of home-bound isolation, that seem never-ending, my reading of two pieces of literature helped in understanding the creative pursuits of "bound" writers, who not just subscribed to their unfailing belief in freedom, but also utilised their detention experience to reflect on life.

I revisited the English translation of French writer Henri Charrière's record-selling Papillon at a time when the doorbell sound was unfamiliar, grocery unobtainable, and a steady stream of Coronavirus-related bad news unstoppable. Papillon was the nickname of the writer during his years in the Paris underworld. The memoir was uplifting in many ways. First, the suffering of the protagonist, wrongly convicted of murder, makes the reader assess the current personal confinement on a relative scale. Astounding are Charrière's nine failed attempts to break free from jail, his 13 years in various forms of subhuman captivity and unimaginable torment at the hands of prosecutors.