Parachuted into France as a British secret agent, Christopher Burney was arrested by the Gestapo and thrown into a solitary confinement cell in a prison outside Paris. There he spent 526 days in complete isolation. With little human contact and nothing to distract him, Burney developed a mental and spiritual regime that enabled him not just to survive but to develop an internal resilience that enabled him to survive his subsequent time in Buchenwald concentration camp.

Out of print for over 40 years and virtually unknown outside the U.K., Solitary Confinement has quietly developed a reputation as a modern masterpiece of contemplative literature. As the critic Frank Kermode wrote, "The courage and the intellectual integrity Christopher Burney are far beyond what most of us would expect of ourselves."