Download or read book This Is Not My Life written by Diane Schoemperlen and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2016-04-23 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the Governor General’s Award winning author of Forms of Devotion, Our Lady of the Lost and Found and By the Book “Never once in my life had I dreamed of being in bed with a convicted killer.” For almost six turbulent years, award-winning writer Diane Schoemperlen was involved with a prison inmate serving a life sentence for second-degree murder. The relationship surprised no one more than her. How do you fall in love with a man with a violent past? How do you date someone who is in prison? This Is Not My Life is the story of the romance between Diane and Shane—how they met and fell in love, how they navigated passes and parole and the obstacles facing a long-term prisoner attempting to return to society, and how, eventually, things fell apart. While no relationship takes place in a vacuum, this is never more true than when that relationship is with a federal inmate. In this candid, often wry, sometimes disturbing memoir, Schoemperlen takes us inside this complex and difficult relationship as she journeys through the prison system with Shane. Not only did this relationship enlarge her capacity for both empathy and compassion, but it also forced her to more deeply examine herself.

Download or read book This Is Not My Life written by Diane Schoemperlen and published by HarperAvenue. This book was released on 2016-04-26 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the Governor General’s Award winning author of Forms of Devotion, Our Lady of the Lost and Found and By the Book “Never once in my life had I dreamed of being in bed with a convicted killer.” For almost six turbulent years, award-winning writer Diane Schoemperlen was involved with a prison inmate serving a life sentence for second-degree murder. The relationship surprised no one more than her. How do you fall in love with a man with a violent past? How do you date someone who is in prison? This Is Not My Life is the story of the romance between Diane and Shane—how they met and fell in love, how they navigated passes and parole and the obstacles facing a long-term prisoner attempting to return to society, and how, eventually, things fell apart. While no relationship takes place in a vacuum, this is never more true than when that relationship is with a federal inmate. In this candid, often wry, sometimes disturbing memoir, Schoemperlen takes us inside this complex and difficult relationship as she journeys through the prison system with Shane. Not only did this relationship enlarge her capacity for both empathy and compassion, but it also forced her to more deeply examine herself.

Download or read book Memoirs from the Women s Prison written by Nawāl Saʻdāwī and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 1994-11-18 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "If Kafka had been a feminist, his prisoner might have had Nawal el Sa'adawi's feistiness, maybe, like her, he would have hoed a prison garden, led veiled and unveiled cellmates in rebellious calisthenics, strategized with a murderess to foil state illogic. This book gives me hope, even makes me laugh."—Cynthia Enloe, author of The Morning After

Download or read book My Life in Prison written by Qisheng Jiang and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2012 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1999, the tenth anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre, leading dissident Jiang Qisheng was given a four-year sentence for inviting the Chinese people to light candles to honor the victims. Drawn with indignant intensity from Jiang's time in prison, his memoirs offer compelling observations of two of the three modern, "civilized" Beijing jails in which he was held. Along with intriguing vignettes of his fellow prisoners, Jiang describes both brutally dehumanizing conditions and rare moments of unexpected kindness. Prisoners, used as slave labor, become "skinned" through malnutrition and exhaustion, while facing new depths of mental degradation. Throughout, however, Jiang retained his dignity, detached and perceptive intelligence, and concern for his fellow sufferers, guards included. Writing in his signature light and ironic style, Jiang's stories of prisoners, who come from the most primitive and impoverished layer of Chinese society, are related with vividness, insight, humor, and compassion. Dismayed by their fatalistic docility, the author asks, "Where lies China's hope? Can democracy ever take root in China?" The answers, surely, lie in the voices of those, like Jiang, who dare to speak out.

Download or read book My Time Will Come written by Ian Manuel and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2022-04-19 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The inspiring story of activist and poet Ian Manuel, who at the age of fourteen was sentenced to life in prison. He survived eighteen years in solitary confinement—through his own determination and dedication to art—until he was freed as part of an incredible crusade by the Equal Justice Initiative. “Ian is magic. His story is difficult and heartbreaking, but he takes us places we need to go to understand why we must do better. He survives by relying on a poetic spirit, an unrelenting desire to succeed, to recover, and to love. Ian’s story says something hopeful about our future.” —Bryan Stevenson, author of Just Mercy The United States is the only country in the world that sentences thirteen- and fourteen-year-old offenders, mostly youth of color, to life in prison without parole. In 1991, Ian Manuel, then fourteen, was sentenced to life without parole for a non-homicide crime. In a botched mugging attempt with some older boys, he shot a young white mother of two in the face. But as Bryan Stevenson, attorney and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative, has insisted, none of us should be judged by only the worst thing we have ever done. Capturing the fullness of his humanity, here is Manuel’s powerful testimony of growing up homeless in a neighborhood riddled with poverty, gang violence, and drug abuse—and of his efforts to rise above his circumstances, only to find himself, partly through his own actions, imprisoned for two-thirds of his life, eighteen years of which were spent in solitary confinement. Here is the story of how he endured the savagery of the United States prison system, and how his victim, an extraordinary woman, forgave him and bravely advocated for his freedom, which was achieved by an Equal Justice Initiative push to address the barbarism of our judicial system and bring about “just mercy.” Full of unexpected twists and turns as it describes a struggle for redemption, My Time Will Come is a paean to the capacity of the human will to transcend adversity through determination and art—in Ian Manuel’s case, through his dedication to writing poetry.

Download or read book I Will Never See the World Again written by Ahmet Altan and published by Other Press, LLC. This book was released on 2019-10-01 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Best Book of the Year – Bloomberg News A resilient Turkish writer’s inspiring account of his imprisonment that provides crucial insight into political censorship amidst the global rise of authoritarianism. The destiny I put down in my novel has become mine. I am now under arrest like the hero I created years ago. I await the decision that will determine my future, just as he awaited his. I am unaware of my destiny, which has perhaps already been decided, just as he was unaware of his. I suffer the pathetic torment of profound helplessness, just as he did. Like a cursed oracle, I foresaw my future years ago not knowing that it was my own. Confined in a cell four meters long, imprisoned on absurd, Kafkaesque charges, novelist Ahmet Altan is one of many writers persecuted by Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s oppressive regime. In this extraordinary memoir, written from his prison cell, Altan reflects upon his sentence, on a life whittled down to a courtyard covered by bars, and on the hope and solace a writer’s mind can provide, even in the darkest places.

Download or read book My Prisons written by Silvio Pellico and published by . This book was released on 1889 with total page 350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Running the Books written by Avi Steinberg and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2011-10-04 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Avi Steinberg is stumped. After defecting from yeshiva to attend Harvard, he has nothing but a senior thesis on Bugs Bunny to show for himself. While his friends and classmates advance in the world, Steinberg remains stuck at a crossroads, his “romantic” existence as a freelance obituary writer no longer cutting it. Seeking direction (and dental insurance) Steinberg takes a job running the library counter at a Boston prison. He is quickly drawn into the community of outcasts that forms among his bookshelves—an assortment of quirky regulars, including con men, pimps, minor prophets, even ghosts—all searching for the perfect book and a connection to the outside world. Steinberg recounts their daily dramas with heartbreak and humor in this one-of-a-kind memoir—a piercing exploration of prison culture and an entertaining tale of one young man’s earnest attempt to find his place in the world.

Download or read book Prison Baby written by Deborah Jiang-Stein and published by Beacon Press. This book was released on 2014-03-04 with total page 185 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A deeply personal and inspiring memoir recounting one woman’s struggles—beginning with her birth in prison—to find self-acceptance Prison Baby is a revised and substantially expanded version of Deborah Jiang Stein’s self-published memoir, Even Tough Girls Wear Tutus. Even at twelve years old, Deborah, the adopted daughter of a progressive Jewish couple in Seattle, felt like an outsider. Her mixed Asian features set her apart from her white, well-intentioned parents who evaded questions about her past. But when she discovered a letter revealing the truth of her prison birth to a heroin-addicted mother—and that she spent the first year of life in prison—Deborah spiraled into emotional lockdown. For years she turned to drugs, violence, and crime as a way to cope with her grief. Ultimately, Deborah overcame the stigma, shame, and secrecy of her birth, and found peace by helping others—proving that redemption and acceptance are possible even from the darkest corners.

Download or read book Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist written by Alexander Berkman and published by . This book was released on 1912 with total page 560 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Writing Our Way Out written by David Coogan and published by . This book was released on 2015-09-30 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Detailing the formative and transformative memories of ten men, 'Writing Our Way Out' is the creative culmination of a writing class that began in the Richmond City Jail in Virginia, and grew into a journey to re-entry. Compiled in a narrative by their teacher, Dr. David Coogan, these stories explore the conditions, traps, and turning points on the path to imprisonment in modern America, as well as the redemptive and rehabilitative power of memoir.

Download or read book Serving Time Too written by Rosalind Boone Williams and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2019-05-29 with total page 189 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Serving Time Too: A Memoir of My Son’s Prison Years is the universally accessible story of a mother and son: what she knew about him; what she will never understand; how she helped him, and when she needed to let him go. But Rosalind Williams’ memoir is unique because her unconditional love for Marell persisted after his conviction for murder. During his sixteen years in prison and for two-and-a-half years after his release, every aspect of Rosalind’s life was affected by her fidelity to him and by the failures of a penal system tinged with racial and class inequities. Rosalind tells a personal story with enormous significance to society. She is an unflinchingly fair, sometimes self-critical narrator who reflects upon the enticements of violence and crime, especially for African American young men, despite the values they are taught at home. Her experiences demonstrate the damage that crime and punishment inflict upon those good people who stand by loved ones during and after incarceration. This memoir will comfort anyone related to the 2.3 million people behind bars in the United States. Others will hear a call to reform and, more importantly, they will feel compassion for the offender’s family, and the offender. No other book in print takes Rosalind’s perspective on the problems of crime and incarceration.

Download or read book Prisoner written by Jason Rezaian and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2019-01-22 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Inspiration for the New Podcast Featuring Jason Rezaian. “544 Days” is a Spotify original podcast, produced by Gimlet, Crooked Media and A24. The dramatic memoir of the journalist who was held hostage in a high-security prison in Tehran for eighteen months and whose release—which almost didn’t happen—became a part of the Iran nuclear deal In July 2014, Washington Post Tehran bureau chief Jason Rezaian was arrested by Iranian police, accused of spying for America. The charges were absurd. Rezaian’s reporting was a mix of human interest stories and political analysis. He had even served as a guide for Anthony Bourdain’s Parts Unknown. Initially, Rezaian thought the whole thing was a terrible misunderstanding, but soon realized that it was much more dire as it became an eighteen-month prison stint with impossibly high diplomatic stakes. While in prison, Rezaian had tireless advocates working on his behalf. His brother lobbied political heavyweights including John Kerry and Barack Obama and started a social media campaign—#FreeJason—while Jason’s wife navigated the red tape of the Iranian security apparatus, all while the courts used Rezaian as a bargaining chip in negotiations for the Iran nuclear deal. In Prisoner, Rezaian writes of his exhausting interrogations and farcical trial. He also reflects on his idyllic childhood in Northern California and his bond with his Iranian father, a rug merchant; how his teacher Christopher Hitchens inspired him to pursue journalism; and his life-changing decision to move to Tehran, where his career took off and he met his wife. Written with wit, humor, and grace, Prisoner brings to life a fascinating, maddening culture in all its complexity. “An important story. Harrowing, and suspenseful, yes—but it’s also a deep dive into a complex and egregiously misunderstood country with two very different faces. There is no better time to know more about Iran—and Jason Rezaian has seen both of those faces.” — Anthony Bourdain “Jason paid a deep price in defense of journalism and his story proves that not everyone who defends freedom carries a gun, some carry a pen.” —John F. Kerry, 68th Secretary of State

Download or read book Memoirs of a Militant written by Nawal Qasim Baidoun and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2023-01-11 with total page 198 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A first person account of a young woman activist imprisoned for four years in the notorious Khiam Women's Prison Shattering the notion that Muslim women did not play an active role in armed resistance and national liberation struggles A unique and rare insight into the life of a woman living in extreme and uncertain conditions Recounting the Israeli invasion and occupation of South Lebanon Brilliantly translated by Michelle Hartman and Caline Nasrallah from McGill University in Montreal An important message about the need to liberate prisoners and the call for solidarity in the face of injustice Shattering the notion that Muslim women did not play an active role in armed resistance national liberation struggles “In order to carry on with life in prison, you must believe you will be there forever.” In the haunting and inspiring Memoirs of a Militant: My Years in the Khiam Women’s Prison Nawal Baidoun offers us her first-person account of the life of a young woman activist imprisoned for four years, as well as the events leading up to her arrest and detention. Born into a nationalist family in Bint Jbeil, Lebanon, not far from the location of the prison itself, Baidoun, like so many others, found herself compelled to take up arms to resist the Israeli occupation. Her memoir skillfully weaves together two stories: that of the oppressive conditions facing ordinary people and families in South Lebanon, and that of the horrors of daily life and the struggle for survival inside the prison itself. Arrested for her role in planning the assassination of the well-known Israeli agent and collaborator, Husayn Abdel Nabi, Baidoun was at one point detained with Soha Bechara, a fellow militant whose similar operation is better known. Her activism rooted in her Islamic faith, Baidoun shatters the notion that Muslim women did not play an active role in the armed resistance. Much like her sisters in Algeria and Palestine, Nawal Baidoun belongs to a generation of Muslim women in the Arab world who played a significant role in their national liberation struggles. She describes the intense mental and physical torture she endured, and her refusal to confess despite this. Memoirs of a Militant offers us rare and unique insight into the strength and courage of Baidoun in extreme circumstances and conditions. Nawal Baidoun herself has said that she wrote this book as a sort of history lesson for the generations who come after her, to show the ways in which women actively took part in the resistance and struggle against the occupation. Her strongly abolitionist message about prisons and the need to liberate all prisoners and detainees resonates strongly today, as does her call for solidarity in the face of injustice.

Download or read book Fish written by T. J. Parsell and published by Da Capo Press. This book was released on 2009-04-27 with total page 431 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When seventeen-year-old T. J. Parsell held up the local Photo Mat with a toy gun, he was sentenced to four and a half to fifteen years in prison. The first night of his term, four older inmates drugged Parsell and took turns raping him. When they were through, they flipped a coin to decide who would "own" him. Forced to remain silent about his rape by a convict code among inmates (one in which informers are murdered), Parsell's experience that first night haunted him throughout the rest of his sentence. In an effort to silence the guilt and pain of its victims, the issue of prisoner rape is a story that has not been told. For the first time Parsell, one of America's leading spokespeople for prison reform, shares the story of his coming of age behind bars. He gives voice to countless others who have been exposed to an incarceration system that turns a blind eye to the abuse of the prisoners in its charge. Since life behind bars is so often exploited by television and movie re-enactments, the real story has yet to be told. Fish is the first breakout story to do that.

Download or read book Writing My Wrongs written by Shaka Senghor and published by Convergent Books. This book was released on 2017-01-31 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • An “extraordinary, unforgettable” (Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow) memoir of redemption and second chances amidst America’s mass incarceration epidemic, from a member of Oprah’s SuperSoul 100 Shaka Senghor was raised in a middle-class neighborhood on Detroit’s east side during the height of the 1980s crack epidemic. An honor roll student and a natural leader, he dreamed of becoming a doctor—but at age eleven, his parents’ marriage began to unravel, and beatings from his mother worsened, which sent him on a downward spiral. He ran away from home, turned to drug dealing to survive, and ended up in prison for murder at the age of nineteen, full of anger and despair. Writing My Wrongs is the story of what came next. During his nineteen-year incarceration, seven of which were spent in solitary confinement, Senghor discovered literature, meditation, self-examination, and the kindness of others—tools he used to confront the demons of his past, forgive the people who hurt him, and begin atoning for the wrongs he had committed. Upon his release at age thirty-eight, Senghor became an activist and mentor to young men and women facing circumstances like his. His work in the community and the courage to share his story led him to fellowships at the MIT Media Lab and the Kellogg Foundation and invitations to speak at events like TED and the Aspen Ideas Festival. In equal turns, Writing My Wrongs is a page-turning portrait of life in the shadow of poverty, violence, and fear; an unforgettable story of redemption; and a compelling witness to our country’s need for rethinking its approach to crime, prison, and the men and women sent there.

Download or read book Free Cyntoia written by Cyntoia Brown-Long and published by Atria Books. This book was released on 2020-05-05 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NAACP Image Award nominee for Outstanding Biography/Autobiography In her own words, Cyntoia Brown-Long shares the riveting and redemptive story of how she changed her life for the better while in prison, finding hope through faith after a traumatic adolescence of drug addiction, rape, and sex trafficking led to a murder conviction. “Those...years in prison hadn’t just turned me into woman. They transformed me. The girl who desperately wanted to belong, who felt powerless, who clawed, and scratched her way out of every corner she was backed into, was gone.” At the age of sixteen, Cyntoia Brown, a survivor of human trafficking, was arrested for killing a man who had picked her up for sex. Two years later, she was sentenced to life in prison. Brown reflects on the isolation, low self-esteem, and sense of alienation that drove her straight into the hands of a predator. Once in prison, she attempts to build a positive path and honor the values her beloved adoptive mother, Ellenette, taught her, but Cyntoia succumbs to harmful influences that drive her to a cycle of progress and setbacks. Then, a fateful meeting with a prison educator turned mentor offers Cyntoia the opportunity to make the pivotal decision to strive for a better future, even if she’s never freed. In these pages, Cyntoia shares the details of her transformation, including a profound encounter with God, an unlikely romance, an unprecedented outpouring of support from social media advocates and A-list celebrities, and her release from prison. A coming-of-age memoir set against the shocking backdrop of a life behind bars, Free Cyntoia takes you on a spiritual journey as Cyntoia struggles to overcome a lifetime of feeling ostracized and abandoned by society.