Dry Guillotine

Dry Guillotine is the English translation of the French phrase la guillotine sèche, which was prisoner slang for the Devil's Island penal colony at French Guiana. It is also the title of several articles by various authors and most notably, a very influential and successful book by former prisoner #46,635, René Belbenoît.

Examples of usage

By Charles W. Furlong

The earliest work in the United States making use of the term "dry guillotine" appears as a 14 page article in Harper's Magazine, titled "Cayenne-the Dry Guillotine" (June 1913), by Charles W. Furlong, FRGS. The article carefully details the cruel and often intentionally lethal conditions of life for bagnards (prisoners) in French Guiana and lists, by name, several specific examples of young men doomed to live out their lives at one of the many camps or prisons which comprised the prison colony commonly, but incorrectly, referred to today as Devil's Island.

By René Belbenoit

The best known work by this name is René Belbenoit's memoir, Dry Guillotine, Fifteen Years Among The Living Dead (1938) (also known as I Escaped From Devil's Island). Dry Guillotine chronicles Belbenoit's childhood, his commission of two non-violent and relatively minor thefts from employers, and his subsequent capture, conviction, and transportation to French Guiana.