Prison literature
Martin Luther translated the New Testament from Koine Greek into German and also wrote Against Latomus and a number of other texts, whilst hiding, with an assumed identity, from the pope at Wartburg Castle between 1521 and 1522.
Miguel de Cervantes was held captive by Barbary pirates as a galley slave in Algiers between 1575 and 1580, and from this experience he drew inspiration for his novel Don Quixote.
[7] Oscar Wilde wrote the philosophical essay De Profundis while he was in Reading Gaol on charges of "unnatural acts" and "gross indecency" with other men.
[7] The Indian independence activist Bal Gangadhar Tilak, wrote the Gita Rahasya, an analysis of Karma yoga, whilst in prison at Mandalay, Burma.
E. E. Cummings 1922 autobiographical novel The Enormous Room was written while he was imprisoned by the French during World War I on the charge of expressing anti-war sentiments in private letters home.
[7] Adolf Hitler wrote his autobiographical and political ideology book Mein Kampf while he was imprisoned after the Beer Hall Putsch in November 1923.
The Italian Marxist theorist Antonio Gramsci wrote much of his work while imprisoned by the fascist government of Mussolini during the 1930s; this was later published as Prison Notebooks, and contained his influential theory of cultural hegemony.
Behrouz Boochani authored No Friend But the Mountains (2018) by using a mobile phone to send thousands of text messages during his incarceration by the Australian government on Manus Island.
Some examples of female prison writers include Madame Roland (Paris, 1793), Krystyna Wituska (Berlin, 1942-44), Nawal El Saadawi (Egypt, 1981), Joan Henry (England, 1951), Caesarina Kona Makhoere (South Africa, 1976-82),[10][11] Vera Figner (Russia, 1883–1904), Béatrice Saubin (Malaysia, 1992-90), Precious Bedell (New York, 1980-99), and Lady Constance Lytton (England, 1910).
Some other 20th-century prison writers include Jim Tully, Ernest Booth, Chester Himes, Nelson Algren, Robert Lowell, George Jackson, Jimmy Santiago Baca, and Kathy Boudin.
"[15] Since America is globally reputed as being a “democratic haven” and the “land of freedom,” writings that come out of American prisons can potentially present a challenge to popularly-held mythologized impressions about the country's founding principles.
