Words Under Confinement: Prison Writing as Political Act

April 26, 2007 | Instituto Cervantes | NYC

With Breyten Breytenbach, Massimo Carlotto, Kathleen Cleaver, Susan Rosenberg; moderated by Drake Stutesman

Co-sponsored by Instituto Cervantes New York, the Consulate General of Spain, and the PEN Prison Writing Program

Discussed: the entwining nature of activism and writing; the prisoner’s need to romanticize, invent, reinvent, and justify their lives; prison as the untranslatable experience; writing in full view of one’s enemies; reaching out by writing letters; being ethically and politically responsible to the experience of incarceration.

PHOTO GALLERY
Copyright © 2007 Beowulf Sheehan/PEN American Center

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• Entire event (1:17:41)

From the PEN Blogs

• Anne Landsman:
I came to the Prison Writing panel at the Instituto Cervantes in part because I had recently interviewed Breyten Breytenbach for the November issue…[More]