Prison Writing and the Literary World

Prison Writing and the Literary World tackles international prison writingand writing about imprisonment in relation to questions of literary representationand formal aesthetics, the “value” or “values” of literature,textual censorship and circulation, institutional networks and literary-criticalmethodologies. It offers scholarly essays exploring prison writingin relation to wartime internment, political imprisonment, resistance andindependence creation, regimes of terror, and personal narratives of developmentand awakening that grapple with race, class and gender. Cuttingacross geospatial divides while drawing on nation- and region-specific expertise,it asks readers to connect the questions, examples and challengesarising from prison writing and writing about imprisonment within theUK and the USA, but also across continental Europe, Stalinist Russia, theAmericas, Africa and the Middle East. It also includes critical reflectionpieces from authors, editors, educators and theatre practitioners with experienceof the fraught, testing and potentially inspiring links between prisonand the literary world.