Philippe Jutteau

In the USSR, political prisoners who were scientists were not always sent to GULAG, but also to The First Circle (named after Dante's Inferno), a special incarceration unit near Moscow where they could work for the government.

Jacques is of French descent, and Madiou is his West African friend. The two boys are just eleven years old and they have been friends all their lives as they grew up in Conakry, the capital of Guinea. Like their elders, they are completely unprepared for the vicious and violent reign of terror which is soon to sweep this newly independent country, terror which comes at the instigation of the country's unbalanced new leader.