Prison Writing of Latin America

Download or read book Prison Writing of Latin America written by Joey Whitfield and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2018-07-26 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What happens inside Latin American prisons? How does the social organisation of prisoners relate to the political structures beyond the walls? Is it possible to resist corrupt penal regimes? In Prison Writing of Latin America, Joey Whitfield turns to those best placed to answer these questions: people who have been imprisoned themselves. Drawing on a century of material produced by Latin American prisoners from Mexico, Cuba, Costa Rica, Colombia, Peru, Bolivia and Brazil, Whitfield weaves readings of novels, memoirs and testimonial texts with social and political analysis. Rather than distinguishing between dictatorial and democratic periods of government, he shows that from the point of view of the prisoner, all states are authoritarian in nature. In the face of oppression, however, prisoners both 'political' and 'criminal' have found ways not only to resist but also to create alternative communities both real and imagined, sometimes in collaboration with each other.