An anthology of the extraordinary literature created by American convictsThis unique collection dramatizes the history of the modern American prison and offers a harrowing vision of prison life in America today. H. Bruce Franklin, a leading authority on American prison writing, has gathered more than sixty selections from some of the most powerful works -- memoirs, stories, novels, poems -- written in the last hundred years. The volume ranges from Jack London's account of the brutalities he suffered at the hands of his jailers at the turn of the nineteenth century to Mumia Abdul-Jamal's experiences today, writing "live from Death Row".Prison Writing in 20th-Century America is at once an anatomy of one of the world's largest institutions, an exploration of the meanings of imprisonment, and -- as Tom Wicker writes in his moving Foreword -- "an unforgettable testimony to the human spirit... to its survival in the most unforgiving and uncharitable circumstances".