Letters from prison testifying to deeply felt ethical principles have a long history, extending from antiquity to the present day. In the early modern era, the rise of printing houses helped turn these letters into a powerful form of political and religious resistance. W. Clark Gilpin’s fascinating book examines how letter writers in England—ranging from archbishops to Quaker women—consolidated the prison letter as a literary form. Drawing from a large collection of printed prison letters written from the reign of Henry VIII to the closing decades of the seventeenth century, Gilpin explores the genre's many facets within evolving contexts of reformation and revolution. The writers of these letters portrayed the prisoner of conscience as a distinct persona and the prison as a place of redemptive suffering where bearing witness had the power to change society. The Letter from Prison features a diverse cast of characters and a literary genre that combines drama and inspiration. It is sure to appeal to those interested in early modern England, prison literature, and cultural forms of resistance.

Cultural Writing. Translation. Translated from the Czech and Slovak by Gerald Turner. Foreword by Vaclav Havel. The letters printed in this volume were written during Milan Simecka's stay in prison (the author's crime: smuggling his texts out of the country to be published abroad.) Not allowed to mention politics, Simecka--one of the most widely translated dissidents opposing the Communist regime in the former Czechoslovakia--wrote instead about people and human relations. The selection presented here contains philosophical reflections as well as practical advice for his wife and sons, bearing witness to both his attitude towards others and to the period in which he lived. Similar to Vaclav Havel's Letters to Olga, Simecka's LETTERS FROM PRISON give us a glimpse into the difficult struggle undertaken by Czechoslovak dissidents in opposition to a Soviet-style regime that was considered the most hard-line in Eastern Europe.

Literary Journalism Goes Inside Prison: Just Sentences opens up a new exploration of literary journalism – immersive, long-form journalism so beautifully written that it can stand as literature – in the first anthology to examine literary journalism and prison. In this book, a wide range of compelling subjects are considered. These include Nelson Mandela and other prisoners of apartheid; the made-in-prison podcast Ear Hustle; women’s experiences of life behind bars; Behrouz Boochani’s 2018 bestseller No Friend but the Mountains; George Orwell’s artful writing on incarceration; Pete Earley’s immersion into the largest prison in the United States, The Hot House; Arthur Koestler and the Spanish Civil War; Ted Conover’s year as a prison guard in Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing and (most originally) Bruce Springsteen’s execution narrative Nebraska. This volume will benefit anyone who writes, studies or teaches any form of narrative nonfiction. Eleven international scholars articulate what makes the work they are analysing so exceptional. At the same time, they offer insights on a diverse range of vital topics. These include journalism ethics, journalism and trauma, media history, cultural studies, criminology and social justice.

Rita Hayworth dancing by candlelight in a small Mexican village; Elizabeth Taylor devouring homemade pasta and tenderly wrapping him in her pashmina scarf; streaking for Sir Laurence Olivier in a drafty English castle; terrifying a dozing Jackie Onassis; carrying an unconscious Montgomery Clift to safety on a dark New York City street. Captured forever in a unique memoir, Frank Langella's myriad encounters with some of the past century's most famous human beings are profoundly affecting, funny, wicked, sometimes shocking, and utterly irresistible. With sharp wit and a perceptive eye, Mr. Langella takes us with him into the private worlds and privileged lives of movie stars, presidents, royalty, literary lions, the social elite, and the greats of the Broadway stage. What, for instance, was Jack Kennedy doing on that coffee table? Why did the Queen Mother need Mr. Langella's help? When was Paul Mellon going to pay him money owed? How did Brooke Astor lose her virginity? Why was Robert Mitchum singing Gilbert & Sullivan patter songs at top volume, and what did Marilyn Monroe say to him that helped change the course of his life? Through these shared experiences, we learn something, too, of Mr. Langella's personal journey from the age of fifteen to the present day. Dropped Names is, like its subjects, riveting and unforgettable.

Jesus Christ in History and Scripture highlights two related bases for the current revolution in Jesus studies: (1) a critically-chastened world view that is satisfied with provisional results and (2) a creative (or "poetic") use of the sources of study of Jesus.

This book tells the dramatic and often surprising story of the learning of the Irish language by Irish Republican prisoners held in the infamous H-block cells during the bloody political conflict in Northern Ireland. Using research methods and techniques, the author closely analyses the emergence of the Irish language amongst republican prisoners and ex prisoners in Northern Ireland from the 1970s up until the present. This pioneering study shows how the language was used exclusively in parts of the prison, despite the efforts of the prison authorities to suppress the language, and the dramatic impact this had on Irish society. Drawing on interviews with the prisoners, and various other materials, Mac Giolla Chriost shows how these developments gave rise to the popular coinage of the term ‘Jailtacht’, a deformation of ‘Gaeltacht’ - the official Irish-speaking districts of the Republic of Ireland, to describe this unique linguistic phenomenon.

The growth of Islam in Europe is reflected in the increasing numbers of Muslims in British and French prisons, but authorities have responded differently to the challenges presented by Muslim prisoners in each country. The findings of three years of intensive research in a variety of prisons show that British prisons facilitate and control the practice d of Islam, whereas French prisons discourage it and thereby sow the seeds of extremism. The policy implications of these ironic findings are examined in detail.