First published 2019
Albert Woodfox chronicles his extraordinary survival through more than four decades in solitary confinement at Louisiana's Angola prison. Confined to a cell measuring 6 feet by 9 feet for 23 hours each day, Woodfox endured this punishment for a crime he never committed. His memoir details the daily violence and deprivation that defined his existence within one of America's most notorious correctional facilities. Woodfox examines how he maintained his sanity and humanity despite the systematic cruelty designed to break prisoners mentally and physically. The book reveals his strategies for psychological survival and his determination to prove his innocence. Woodfox transforms his personal ordeal into a powerful argument against the practice of prolonged isolation in American prisons. His account demonstrates both the resilience of the human spirit and the urgent need for prison reform across the United States and beyond.
Genres: african-american, crime, non-fiction, biography-memoir, social-justice, activism, american-history
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: resilience, survival
Setting: Angola, Louisiana
Period: 20th-century
433 pages · Hardcover · Grove Press
Content warnings: abuse, violence