Much of what we do at Books Beyond Bars encompasses spreading awareness and compassion for the incarcerated. Books have the wonderful ability to transport the people we serve to a place of imagination, gratitude, and redemption. As July as been a month of celebrating independence, we want to continue our summer by recognizing formerly incarcerated authors who have used their release to tell their own stories. Below are some the books that inspire our shelves and the people in prisons that read from them.
1. Ahmet Altan, I Will Never See the World Again: The Memoir of an Imprisoned Writer (New York, NY: Other Press, 2019)
“Like a cursed oracle, I foresaw my future years ago not knowing that it was my own.” In this inspiring, resilient, often humorous collection of essays, novelist Ahmet Altan narrates the role of political censorship in his unjust incarceration. Recalling his confinement in a tiny cell on trumped-up charges following the failed Turkish coup of 2016, Altan describes his persecution at the hands of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s authoritarian regime. Ultimately, he discovers that the power to survive has been within him all along: “I am a writer,” he declares. “I am neither where I am nor where I am not.”
2. Wilbert Rideau, In the Place of Justice (New York, NY: Vintage, 2011)
In 1961, after killing a bank teller during a botched robbery, Wilbert Rideau was sentenced to death at the age of just nineteen. He spent several years on death row at Angola State Penitentiary before his sentence was commuted to life. At Angola he wrote “The Jungle,” a column about prison life, and became editor of the prison magazine, The Angolite. Accepting responsibility for his actions, Rideau worked to redeem himself, aiming to reform Louisiana's justice system from the inside. This detailed account of prison life conveys the importance of kindness, compassion, and perseverance, no matter how tough the circumstances.
3. Cleary Wolters, Out of Orange: A Memoir (New York, NY: HarperCollins, 2016)
Out of Orange provides a close look at international drug crime from a truly unique perspective; author Cleary Wolters was the inspiration for the character of Alex Vause in the Netflix show Orange Is the New Black. In this memoir, Wolters aims to set the record straight, answering questions from fans while offering an insightful and surprisingly uplifting analysis of modern crime and punishment. Chronicling the lead up to her life in the drug trade and her time behind bars, the book also delves into her complicated relationship with Piper Kerman, on whose own book the TV drama was based.
4. Andy West, The Life Inside (New York, NY: Picador, 2022)
In this blend of memoir, storytelling and philosophical questioning, Andy West provides an unusual and thoughtful perspective on our flawed justice system and failing prisons, and on the complex lives being lived inside. As a teacher of philosophy in prisons, West talks to incarcerated individuals every day about their ideas, emotions, and diverse understandings of and approaches to the situation in which they find themselves. He does this against a backdrop of his own inherited trauma: his father, brother, and uncle all spent time in prison, and their legacies color his thinking on questions of truth, identity, hope, and freedom.
5. The Elsinoe-Bennu Think Tank for Restorative Justice, Life Sentences: Writings from Inside an American Prison (Cleveland, OH: Belt Publishing, 2019)
In this collection of poetry and prose, six incarcerated men present readers with a diverse mixture of a memoir, philosophy, history, manifestos, and political proposal. The authors―Fly, Faruq, Khalifa, Malakki, Oscar, and Shawn―met at the State Correctional Institution in Pittsburgh and came together to establish the Elsinore Bennu Think Tank for Restorative Justice in 2013. Centered around the principles of restorative justice, which aims to heal communities marked by violence, Life Sentences is an affecting literary collection that also functions as an inspirational guide. It also features an introduction by Amber Epps and an afterword by novelist John Edgar Wideman.
Special thanks to those with published work who’ve contacted us in hopes of sharing their books with people in prison. We have many inspirational titles as part of our collection and are working to expand it with more empowering voices. Feedback from sending prison memoirs has shown that many people on the inside desire connection and representation through the power of words. You can support our library by adding more memoirs via our Take Action page. Check out any of the titles above and feel free to make a donation or share with us how you enjoyed the reading!