American prison literature is literature written by Americans who are incarcerated. It is a distinct literary phenomenon that is increasingly studied as such by academics.[1]
Prison has been a fertile setting for artists, musicians, and writers alike. Prisoners have produced hundreds of works that have encompassed a wide range of literature. [...] Books describing the prison experience, including the Autobiography of Malcolm X, inspired an audience far outside the prison walls. The importance of these works has been recognized in this country's highest courts. See Simon & Schuster, Inc. v. Crime Victims Board, 502 U.S. 105, 121-122 (1991)(citing works by prisoners).[2]
Overview
The emergence of prison writing relied on convicts with the necessary writing skills to tell their stories from the inside. Early writings came from prisoners who had already begun to publish before being arrested. Among these early-20th-century writers was Jack London, who spent a month in 1894 in New York State's Erie County Penitentiary. This transformative experience informed much of his writing.[according to whom?]
Early 20th century
Prison writing has often been seen as an act of political resistance. In the first two decades of the 20th century, the prisoners who were published were primarily social activists. Socialist writer Kate Richards O'Hare, spent a year in prison (1919–1920), causing her to dedicate her life to exposing the horrors of prison conditions and the economic structure by which they were supported. Anarchist activists Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman also wrote while imprisoned, deepening their philosophical convictions and influencing people worldwide.
One of the most widely read early accounts of prison life in the 20th century was My Life in Prison (1912), by Donald Lowrie. The book inspired Thomas Mott Osborne, who later became warden at Sing Sing, to dedicate his career to prison reform.[citation needed] In 1924, after World War I, H.L. Mencken founded the American Mercury magazine and regularly published convict authors.
At the onset of the Great Depression, authorities began to perceive prison writing as a threat to American society. Manuscripts were potentially profitable subversive tools, and therefore all writing was suppressed.
In 1932, Robert E. Burns published his memoir I Am a Fugitive from a Georgia Chain Gang, which was subsequently made into the movie I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang. As a prison escapee, he wrote to expose the realities of prison slavery. During this time, the entire population felt the effects of poverty, crime, and hardship, making more people receptive to prison narratives.
Chester Himes began writing after going to prison for armed robbery. He reported: "When I could see the end of my time inside I bought myself a typewriter and taught myself to touch type. I'd been reading stories by Dashiell Hammett in Black Mask and I thought I could do them just as well. When my stories finally appeared, the other convicts thought exactly the same thing. There was nothing to it. All you had to do was tell it like it is."[3]
Another writer to emerge during the 1930s was Nelson Algren, whose short story "El Presidente de Mejico" explored his experience in a Texas jail.
Post-WWII
The Autobiography of Malcolm X, published in 1965, was the first full-length memoir of an African-American convict. Co-written by Alex Haley, the book was published the same year that X was assassinated. Prisoners and ex-prisoners began using the printed word to participate in revolutionary activities.[citation needed] Among those influenced by Malcolm X were Eldridge Cleaver, Iceberg Slim, Piri Thomas, and Jack Henry Abbott.
The literary renaissance of prison writing coincided with the social and political unrest of the 1960s and 1970s. There was tremendous support for incarcerated writers since they represented an important front of the culture war. Inner city riots and prison riots exemplified the volatile emotional state of the entire population. The 1971 escape attempt by a San Quentin inmate and author, George Jackson (Soledad Brother), ended in bloodshed. Another activist author, Angela Davis, was implicated in the event because a gun that was used was registered in her name. Jackson's shooting lead to a mass hunger strike at New York's Attica Prison. The strike eventually lead to a prisoner uprising and a subsequent police assault leaving 128 wounded and 39 dead, 10 of the hostages.
By the late 1970s, prison writing was being published extensively in "mass-market paperbacks, newspapers, magazines, major motion pictures."[4] In the 1980s and 1990s, however, there was something of a backlash. New York State led the legislative attack against prison writing. In 1977, the "Son of Sam" law made it illegal for convict authors to collect money from their writings. Some claim that "[a]lthough ostensibly designed to 'protect the victim' and to keep criminals from profiting from their crimes, the real purpose of these laws was identical to the purpose of the repression of prison literature in the 1930s: to keep the American people in the dark about the American prison."[5]
According to Bell Gale Chevigny (1999), prison writing began to go out of fashion in the 1980s. One event triggering this reaction was the 1981 publication of the letters that Jack Henry Abbott wrote from prison to Norman Mailer. This enormously popular publication, entitled In the Belly of the Beast, documented the rage Abbott had cultivated in his years of incarceration. Within six weeks of his release from prison, Abbott killed a man during a fight.
One of the few institutions that still continues to support prison writing is the PEN American Center.
PEN American Center Prison Writing Program
PEN American Center (Poets, Playwrights, Essayists, Editors, and Novelists) is a national chapter of an international association of writers working towards peace.[6] The Center established its Prison Writing Program in 1971, when PEN president Tom Fleming began lobbying for educational opportunities for prisoners. These efforts resulted in reduced censorship, better access to typewriters, and classes, and improved prison libraries.
In 1973, PEN began its annual prison writing contest. Though it had some very difficult years in the 1980s, the contest has taken place every year since its inception. The Prison Writing Program continues to provide mentoring opportunities and publish information concerning prison writing, as well as anthologizing contest winners.
Knight, E. (1968). Poems from prison. Detroit: Broadside.
Fanon, F. (1963). Wretched of the Earth. (C. Farrington, Trans.). New York: Grove.
Foucault, M. (1977). Discipline and Punish. (A. Sheridan, Trans.). New York: Pantheon.
Peltier, L. (1999). Prison writings: my life is my sundance. New York: St. Martins.
Pinero, M. (1975). Short eyes. New York: Hill and Wang.
Shakur, A. (1988). "Assata: An Autobiography". Chicago: Lawrence Hill Books.
Wright, R. (1940). Native son. New York: Harper.
International anthologies of prison writing
Ball, D. (1977). The Experience of prison: an anthology of prose, drama, verse, and picture. London: Longman.
Basset, E. (Ed.) (1978). Each in his prison: an anthology. London: S.P.C.K.
Bould, G. (Ed.) (2005). Conscience be my guide: an anthology of prison writings. New York: Zed Books.
Larson, D. (Ed.) (2014). Fourth City: Essays from the Prison in America. East Lansing, Michigan: Michigan State University Press.
Scheffler, J. A. (Ed.) (1986). Wall tappings: an anthology of writings by women prisoners. Boston: Northeastern University.
Trupin, J. E. (Ed.) (1975) In prison: writings and poems about the prison experience. New York: New American Library.
Literary criticism of prison writing
Israel, Michael (1983). "Jack Henry Abbott, American Prison Writing, and the Experience of Punishment". Criminal Justice and Behavior. 10 (4): 441–460. doi:10.1177/0093854883010004004. S2CID145734431.
Platt, A. M. (1999). 'Prison Writing in 20th-Century America', Social Justice 26.
Smith, Caleb. The Prison and the American Imagination. New Haven, Conn: Yale University Press, 2011.
American literature is literature written or produced in the United States of America and in the colonies that preceded it. The American literary tradition thus is part of the broader tradition of English-language literature, but also includes literature of other traditions produced in the United States and in other immigrant languages. Furthermore, a rich tradition of oral storytelling exists amongst Native Americans.
Creative writing is any writing that goes outside the bounds of normal professional, journalistic, academic, or technical forms of literature, typically identified by an emphasis on narrative craft, character development, and the use of literary tropes or with various traditions of poetry and poetics. Due to the looseness of the definition, it is possible for writing such as feature stories to be considered creative writing, even though it falls under journalism, because the content of features is specifically focused on narrative and character development. Both fictional and non-fictional works fall into this category, including such forms as novels, biographies, short stories, and poems. In the academic setting, creative writing is typically separated into fiction and poetry classes, with a focus on writing in an original style, as opposed to imitating pre-existing genres such as crime or horror. Writing for the screen and stage—screenwriting and playwriting—are often taught separately, but fit under the creative writing category as well.
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Edward Heward Bunker was an American author of crime fiction, a screenwriter, convicted felon and an actor. He wrote numerous books, some of which have been adapted into films. He wrote the scripts for—and acted in—Straight Time (1978), Runaway Train (1985) and Animal Factory (2000). He also played a minor role in Reservoir Dogs (1992).
Jack Henry Abbott was an American criminal and author. With a long history of criminal convictions, Abbott's writing concerning his life and experiences was lauded by a number of well-known literary critics, including author Norman Mailer. Due partly to lobbying by Mailer and others on Abbott's behalf, Abbott was released from prison in 1981 where he was serving sentences for forgery, manslaughter, and bank robbery. Abbott's memoir In the Belly of the Beast was published with positive reviews soon after his release. Six weeks after being paroled from prison, Abbott stabbed and killed a waiter outside a New York City cafe. Abbott was convicted and sent back to prison, where he killed himself in 2002.
In the Belly of the Beast is a book written by Jack Henry Abbott and published in 1981.
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Donald Lowrie was an American newspaper writer and author. He became a well-known advocate of prison reform work upon the release of his book My Life in Prison, in which he reflects on his ten-year incarceration in San Quentin State Prison north of San Francisco, California.
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James Francis Dwyer was an Australian writer. Born in Camden Park, New South Wales, Dwyer worked as a postal assistant until he was convicted in a scheme to make fraudulent postal orders and sentenced to seven years imprisonment in 1899. In prison, Dwyer began writing, and with the help of another inmate and a prison guard, had his work published in The Bulletin. After completing his sentence, he relocated to London and then New York, where he established a successful career as a writer of short stories and novels. Dwyer later moved to France, where he wrote his autobiography, Leg-Irons on Wings, in 1949. Dwyer wrote over 1,000 short stories during his career, and was the first Australian-born person to become a millionaire from writing.
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