List of memoirs of political prisoners
Encyclopedia
A memoir
is an autobiographical writing normally dealing with a particular subject from the author's life. The following is a list of writers who have described their experiences of being political prisoner
s. Those included in the list are individuals who were imprisoned for activities ranging from peaceful dissent to violent revolutionary activity. Some were citizens of the countries whose regimes imprisoned them and others were foreign nationals. What connects them is that they have written about their experience of having been imprisoned because of their political opposition or political identity.
Note, too, that the list omits many autobiographies which deal, only in part, with a period of political imprisonment; and includes some in which imprisonment forms a major part of the book.
Memoir
A memoir , is a literary genre, forming a subclass of autobiography – although the terms 'memoir' and 'autobiography' are almost interchangeable. Memoir is autobiographical writing, but not all autobiographical writing follows the criteria for memoir set out below...
is an autobiographical writing normally dealing with a particular subject from the author's life. The following is a list of writers who have described their experiences of being political prisoner
Political prisoner
According to the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, a political prisoner is ‘someone who is in prison because they have opposed or criticized the government of their own country’....
s. Those included in the list are individuals who were imprisoned for activities ranging from peaceful dissent to violent revolutionary activity. Some were citizens of the countries whose regimes imprisoned them and others were foreign nationals. What connects them is that they have written about their experience of having been imprisoned because of their political opposition or political identity.
Note, too, that the list omits many autobiographies which deal, only in part, with a period of political imprisonment; and includes some in which imprisonment forms a major part of the book.
- Henri AllegHenri AllegHenri Alleg , born Henri Salem, is a French-Algerian journalist, director of the "Alger républicain" newspaper, and a member of the French Communist Party...
, author of The Question. 1958. New York: George Braziller. (theme: denunciationDenunciationDenunciation or abrogation refers to the announcement of a treaty's termination. Some treaties contain a termination clause that specifies that the treaty will terminate if a certain number of nations denounce the treaty...
of tortureTortureTorture is the act of inflicting severe pain as a means of punishment, revenge, forcing information or a confession, or simply as an act of cruelty. Throughout history, torture has often been used as a method of political re-education, interrogation, punishment, and coercion...
in French colonial AlgeriaAlgeriaAlgeria , officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria , also formally referred to as the Democratic and Popular Republic of Algeria, is a country in the Maghreb region of Northwest Africa with Algiers as its capital.In terms of land area, it is the largest country in Africa and the Arab...
)
- Alexander BerkmanAlexander BerkmanAlexander Berkman was an anarchist known for his political activism and writing. He was a leading member of the anarchist movement in the early 20th century....
, author of Prison Memoirs of an AnarchistPrison Memoirs of an AnarchistPrison Memoirs of an Anarchist is Alexander Berkman's account of his experience in prison in Western Penitentiary of Pennsylvania, in Pittsburgh, from 1892 to 1906...
. 1999 (originally 1912). New York: New York Review of Books Classics. (theme: loss of youthful idealism) ISBN 094032234X
- Francois BizotFrançois BizotFrançois Bizot , is the only Westerner to have survived imprisonment by the Khmer Rouge.Bizot arrived in Cambodia in 1965 to study Buddhism practiced in the countryside. He traveled extensively around Cambodia, researching the history and customs of its dominant religion...
, author of The Gate. 2003. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN 0-375-41293-X (themes: criticism of the ignorance of Western decision-makers and intellectuals about CambodiaCambodiaCambodia , officially known as the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia...
, complex character of Khmer Rouge leader Duch, bravery and betrayal)
- Brendan BehanBrendan BehanBrendan Francis Behan was an Irish poet, short story writer, novelist, and playwright who wrote in both Irish and English. He was also an Irish republican and a volunteer in the Irish Republican Army.-Early life:...
, author of Borstal BoyBorstal BoyBorstal Boy is an autobiographical 1958 book by Brendan Behan. The story depicts a young, fervently idealistic Behan who loses his naïveté over the three years of his sentence to a juvenile borstal, softening his radical Republican stance and warming to his fellow British prisoners...
. 2000 (originally 1958). David R. Godine. (theme: resistance to British imperialism) Note that Borstal Boy is one of comparatively few memoirs written by a juvenile political prisoner.
- Breyten BreytenbachBreyten BreytenbachBreyten Breytenbach is a South African writer and painter with French citizenship.-Biography:Breyten Breytenbach was born in Bonnievale, Western Cape, approximately 180 km from Cape Town and 100 km from the southernmost tip of Africa at Cape Agulhas...
, author of The True Confessions of an Albino Terrorist. 1985. New York: Farrar Straus & Giroux. ISBN 0-374-27935-7 (theme: subjectivities of imprisonment)
- Nien ChengNien ChengNien Cheng was a Chinese author who recounted her harrowing experiences of the Cultural Revolution in her memoir Life and Death in Shanghai. In 1966, she became a target of attack by Red Guards due to her former management of a foreign firm in Shanghai, Shell...
, author of Life and Death in ShanghaiLife and Death in ShanghaiLife and Death in Shanghai is an autobiography published in November 1987 by Nien Cheng from exile in the United States which details Cheng's six-year imprisonment during the Cultural Revolution....
. 1987. London: Grafton Books. ISBN 0-586-07115-6 (theme: denunciation of MaoismMaoismMaoism, also known as the Mao Zedong Thought , is claimed by Maoists as an anti-Revisionist form of Marxist communist theory, derived from the teachings of the Chinese political leader Mao Zedong . Developed during the 1950s and 1960s, it was widely applied as the political and military guiding...
)
- Stuart ChristieStuart ChristieStuart Christie is a Scottish anarchist writer and publisher. Christie is best known for being arrested as an 18-year old while carrying explosives to assassinate the Spanish dictator General Franco. He was later alleged to be a member of the Angry Brigade, but was acquitted of related charges...
, author of Granny Made Me An Anarchist: General Franco, The Angry Brigade and Me. 2004. London: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-7432-5918-1 (theme: denunciations of sectarian hatred in Scotland and of statist authoritarianism, including British imperialism, American imperialism, Francoism, Stalinism and Trotskyism)
- Lena ConstanteLena ConstanteLena Constante was a Romanian artist, essayist and memoirist, known for her work in stage design and tapestry. A family friend of Communist Party politician Lucreţiu Pătrăşcanu, she was arrested by the Communist regime following the conflict between Pătrăşcanu and Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej...
. 1995. The Silent Escape: Three Thousand Days in Romanian Prisons. Trans: Franklin Philip. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 0520082095 }(theme: denunciation of Ceaucescu's National Communism)
- Antonio GramsciAntonio GramsciAntonio Gramsci was an Italian writer, politician, political philosopher, and linguist. He was a founding member and onetime leader of the Communist Party of Italy and was imprisoned by Benito Mussolini's Fascist regime...
, author of Prison NotebooksPrison NotebooksThe Prison Notebooks were a series of notebooks by Antonio Gramscismuggled out of prison in the 1930s. They were not published until the 1950s....
. 1929-1935.
- Elizabeth Gurley FlynnElizabeth Gurley FlynnElizabeth Gurley Flynn was a labor leader, activist, and feminist who played a leading role in the Industrial Workers of the World . Flynn was a founding member of the American Civil Liberties Union and a visible proponent of women's rights, birth control, and women's suffrage...
. 1963. The Alderson Story: My Life As a Political Prisoner. International Publishers. ISBN 0-7178-0002-4
- Clare Hanrahan. 2005. Conscience & Consequence: A Prison Memoir. 2005. Asheville: Celtic WordCraft. ISBN 0-9758846-1-1 (theme: Chronicles the peaceful protest actions resulting in author's imprisonment, and provides inside view of Alderson Federal Prison for Women.)
- Václav HavelVáclav HavelVáclav Havel is a Czech playwright, essayist, poet, dissident and politician. He was the tenth and last President of Czechoslovakia and the first President of the Czech Republic . He has written over twenty plays and numerous non-fiction works, translated internationally...
, author of Letters to OlgaLetters to OlgaLetters to Olga is a book of letters by Václav Havel to his wife Olga Havlová during his stay in prison from June 1979 to September 1982. His actual stay lasted until January 1983, when he came down with high fever, was sent into a hospital, and then released....
. SamizdatSamizdatSamizdat was a key form of dissident activity across the Soviet bloc in which individuals reproduced censored publications by hand and passed the documents from reader to reader...
publication, 1988 in English. Henry Holt & Company. ISBN 0-8050-0973-6 (theme: phenomenology of imprisonment)
- Adolf HitlerAdolf HitlerAdolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
, author of Mein KampfMein KampfMein Kampf is a book written by Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. It combines elements of autobiography with an exposition of Hitler's political ideology. Volume 1 of Mein Kampf was published in 1925 and Volume 2 in 1926...
. 1925.
- Kang Chol-HwanKang Chol-HwanKang Chol-Hwan is a defector from North Korea. As a child he was imprisoned in the Yodok concentration camp for 10 years; after his release he fled the country, first to China and eventually to South Korea...
, author of The Aquariums of PyongyangThe Aquariums of PyongyangThe Aquariums of Pyongyang, by Kang Chol-Hwan and Pierre Rigoulot, is an account of the imprisonment of Kang Chol-Hwan and his family in the Yodok concentration camp in North Korea....
: Ten Years in a North Korean Gulag. (written with Pierre Rigoulet) 2000. New York: Basic Books. ISBN 0465011020 (theme: description of life in North Korean labor camps)
- Robert Hillary KingRobert Hillary KingRobert Hillary King, also known as Robert King Wilkerson, is a former member of the Black Panther Party who spent 32 years, 29 of them in solitary confinement, in Angola Prison, Louisiana. King first entered Angola at the age of 18 as the result of a robbery conviction...
, author of From the Bottom of the Heap: The Autobiography of Black Panther, 2008. Oakland, California: PM Press ISBN: 978-1-60486-039-9
- Murat Kunaz, author of Five Years of My Life: An Innocent Man in Guantanamo, 2008.
- Carlo LeviCarlo LeviDr. Carlo Levi was an Italian-Jewish painter, writer, activist, anti-fascist, and doctor.He is best known for his book Cristo si è fermato a Eboli , published in 1945, a memoir of his time spent in exile in Lucania, Italy, after being arrested in connection with his political activism...
, author of Christ Stopped at Eboli, 1945, actually a memoir of internal exile of a political dissident.
- Primo LeviPrimo LeviPrimo Michele Levi was an Italian Jewish chemist and writer. He was the author of two novels and several collections of short stories, essays, and poems, but is best known for If This Is a Man, his account of the year he spent as a prisoner in the Auschwitz concentration camp in Nazi-occupied Poland...
, author of Survival in Auschwitz, 1947; he was arrested as a partisanPartisan (military)A partisan is a member of an irregular military force formed to oppose control of an area by a foreign power or by an army of occupation by some kind of insurgent activity...
.
- Nelson MandelaNelson MandelaNelson Rolihlahla Mandela served as President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999, and was the first South African president to be elected in a fully representative democratic election. Before his presidency, Mandela was an anti-apartheid activist, and the leader of Umkhonto we Sizwe, the armed wing...
, Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson MandelaLong Walk to Freedom (book)Long Walk to Freedom is an autobiographical work written by Nelson Mandela, and published in 1995 by Little Brown & Co. The book profiles his early life, coming of age, education and 27 years in prison. Mandela was once regarded as a terrorist but he is now regarded as uncontroversial...
; Little Brown & Co; ISBN 0-316-54818-9 (paperback, 1995) (theme: overcoming apartheid in South AfricaSouth AfricaThe Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
)
- Haing S. NgorHaing S. NgorDr. Haing Somnang Ngor was a Cambodian American physician, actor and author who is best known for winning the 1985 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his debut performance in the movie The Killing Fields, in which he portrayed Cambodian journalist and refugee Dith Pran. His mother was...
, author of A Cambodian Odyssey. (written with Roger Warner) 1987. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company. ISBN 0446389900 }(theme: denunciation of Khmer RougeKhmer RougeThe Khmer Rouge literally translated as Red Cambodians was the name given to the followers of the Communist Party of Kampuchea, who were the ruling party in Cambodia from 1975 to 1979, led by Pol Pot, Nuon Chea, Ieng Sary, Son Sen and Khieu Samphan...
crimes)
- Lee Soon OkLee Soon OkLee Soon Ok is a former political prisoner and defector from North Korea. She resides in South Korea.-Imprisonment:For six years, Lee was imprisoned in Kaechon concentration camp where she has reported witnessing forced abortions, infanticide, several instances of rape, public executions, testing...
, author of Eyes of the Tailess Animals: Prison Memoirs of a North Korean Woman. 1999. ISBN 0-88264-335-5 (theme: denunciation of JucheJucheJuche or Chuch'e is a Korean word usually translated as "self-reliance." In the Democratic People's Republic of Korea , "Juche" refers specifically to a political thesis of Kim Il-sung, the Juche Idea, that identifies the Korean masses as the masters of the country's development...
)
- Danylo ShumukDanylo ShumukDanylo Lavrentiyovych Shumuk was a Ukrainian political activist who served a total of 42 years imprisoned by three different states, Second Polish Republic, Nazi Germany and Soviet Union.- Living in the Second Polish Republic:...
, author of Life Sentence: Memoirs of a Ukrainian Political Prisoner. 1984. Edmonton: University of Alberta. ISBN 0920862179
- Aleksandr SolzhenitsynAleksandr SolzhenitsynAleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn was aRussian and Soviet novelist, dramatist, and historian. Through his often-suppressed writings, he helped to raise global awareness of the Gulag, the Soviet Union's forced labor camp system – particularly in The Gulag Archipelago and One Day in the Life of...
, author of The Gulag Archipelago, 1918-1956: An Experiment in Literary InvestigationThe Gulag ArchipelagoThe Gulag Archipelago is a book by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn based on the Soviet forced labor and concentration camp system. The three-volume book is a narrative relying on eyewitness testimony and primary research material, as well as the author's own experiences as a prisoner in a gulag labor camp...
. 1973. New York: Harper & Row. ISBN 0-06-013914-5 (theme: denunciation of StalinismStalinismStalinism refers to the ideology that Joseph Stalin conceived and implemented in the Soviet Union, and is generally considered a branch of Marxist–Leninist ideology but considered by some historians to be a significant deviation from this philosophy...
)
- Jacobo Timmerman, author of Preso Sin Nombre, Celda Sin Numero/Prisoner Without a Name, Cell Without a Number. 1985. Buenos Aires: El Cid. (themes: denunciations of Argentine rightist authoritarianism and anti-semitism)
- Leon TrotskyLeon TrotskyLeon Trotsky , born Lev Davidovich Bronshtein, was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and theorist, Soviet politician, and the founder and first leader of the Red Army....
, author of My Life: An Attempt at an AutobiographyMy Life (Leon Trotsky autobiography)My Life - An attempt at an autobiography is the name of the Russian revolutionary Communist leader Leon Trotsky's autobiography. The book was first published in 1930 and was written in the first year of Trotsky's exile in Turkey...
. 1970. New York: Pathfinder Press. ISBN 0873481437 }(themes: denunciation of Tsarism, revolutionary inspiration) Note the interesting descriptions of political prison and internal political exile in Siberia under Tsarism.
- Loung UngLoung UngLoung Ung is a Cambodian American human-rights activist, an internationally-recognized lecturer, and the national spokesperson for the Campaign for a Landmine-Free World...
, author of First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers. 2000. New York: Perennial. ISBN 0-06-093138-8 (themes: denunciations of Khmer Rouge brutality and racism)
- Mordechai VanunuMordechai VanunuMordechai Vanunu ; is a former Israeli nuclear technician who, citing his opposition to weapons of mass destruction, revealed details of Israel's nuclear weapons program to the British press in 1986. He was subsequently lured to Italy by a Mossad agent, where he was drugged and kidnapped by...
, author of Letters from Solitary, a book of letters from Vanunu to Rev. David B. Smith of Sydney, Australia. Vanunu is a political activist who exposed Israel's possession of nuclear weapons, was kidnapped by MossadMossadThe Mossad , short for HaMossad leModi'in uleTafkidim Meyuchadim , is the national intelligence agency of Israel....
, tried in secret, and sentenced to eighteen years in prison. Available as PDFPortable Document FormatPortable Document Format is an open standard for document exchange. This file format, created by Adobe Systems in 1993, is used for representing documents in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems....
s: Light version - Full version with reproductions of each letter.
- Teo Soh Lung, author of Beyond the Blue Gate - Recollections of a Political Prisoner, a book on her imprisonment under the Internal Security Act in Singapore. 2011. Function 8 Limited. ISBN: 978-981-08-8215-0 (pbk).