imprisonment

"A bird perches on the cell window and offers a deal: 'You bring the pencil, and I will bring the stories,' stories of family, of community, of Gaza, of the West Bank, of Jerusalem, of Palestine. The two collect threads of memory and intergenerational trauma from ongoing settler-colonialism. Helping us to see that the prison is much larger than a building, far wider than a cell; it stretches through towns and villages, past military checkpoints and borders. But hope and solidarity can stretch farther, deeper, once strength is drawn of stories and power is born of dreams. Translating headlines into authentic lived experiences, these stories come to life in the striking linocut artwork of Mohammad Sabaaneh, helping us to see Palestinians not as political symbols, but as people"--Amazon.com.

Maryam Rostampour and Marziyeh Amirizadeh, imprisoned for sharing their Christian faith in violation of Islamic laws in Iran, recount how God used their 259 days in Evin Prison to bring about a miraculous reversal while they continued to share their faith with fellow prisoners.

"The first time Billy Moore walked into his cell packed with seventy prisoners, the floor resembled a mass grave, with intertwined arms and legs, and the smell of human feces was so strong he almost vomited. That night, he slept next to a dead man. It wouldn't be the last time. Behind the walls of Klong Prem "Bangkok Hilton" prison, life has no value. Overcrowded cells are a breeding ground for HIV, TB, dengue fever, and hepatitis, and the conditions are putrid and brutal. In an environment where drugs, murder, rape, and corruption run rampant, Moore fights to stay afloat above madness and his inner demons. A few years before, Moore had traveled to Thailand to escape a life of heroin addiction and alcoholism in England. In an attempt to stay straight, he became a professional Muay Thai boxer, worked as an extra in Rambo alongside Sylvester Stallone, and even fell in love. However, in the poverty-stricken back streets of Chiang Mai, Moore's life quickly descended back into chaos when he relapsed after trying ya ba, the deadly crack cocaine of Southeast Asia. Moore was imprisoned first in Chiang Mai Central Prison and later in Klong Prem prison, a hellhole of filth and horror that very few will ever experience and none would want to see again"--.

In 1942 Jim Quillen was serving an eighteen-month sentence in San Quentin prison for armed robbery. When he escaped, he thought he was the luckiest prisoner ever---until he was caught and sentenced to forty-five years inside Alcatraz. His memoir tells the story of his time there---solitary confinement, daily encounters with "The Birdman", and what really happened during the desperate and deadly 1946 escape attempt.

Adolf Hitler spent 1924 away from society and surrounded by co-conspirators of the failed Beer Hall Putsch. Behind bars in a prison near Munich, Hitler passed the year with deep reading and intensive writing as he slowly walked the gravel paths while working feverishly on his book, Mein Kampf (My Struggle). As post World War I Germany continued to sink into economic chaos and unemployment, Hitler was forming his vision of the future. This was the year of Hitler's final transformation into the self-proclaimed savior and infallible leader who would appropriate Germany's historical traditions and create the Third Reich.

Maziar Bahari left London in June 2009 for Iran, assuring his pregnant fiancee that he'd be back in a few days, a week at most. But instead he would spend time in Iran's most notorious prison, enduring brutal interrogations at the hands of a man he only knew by his smell: rosewater. The Bahari family was familiar with wars, coups, and revolutions. Well-known in Iran, imprisonment had come to several Bahari family members in the 1950's and the 1980's. This book presents insights into seventy years of Iranian regime change.

"Three young Americans captured by Iranian forces and held in captivity for two years tell their story. In summer 2009, Shane Bauer, Joshua Fattal, and Sarah Shourd were hiking in Iraqi Kurdistan when they unknowingly crossed into Iran and were captured by a border patrol. Accused of espionage, the three Americans ultimately found themselves in Tehran's infamous Evin Prison"--Publisher.

An account of a Soviet poet's four years spent in a labor camp.