Solitary: Unbroken by Four Decades in Solitary Confinement

Author(s): Albert Woodfox

Biography & Memoir

Solitary is the unforgettable life story of a man who served more than four decades in solitary confinement - in a 6-foot by 9-foot cell, 23 hours aday, in notorious Angola prison in Louisiana - all for a crime he did not commit. That Albert Woodfox survived was, in itself, a feat of extraordinary endurance against the violence and deprivation he faced daily. That he was able to emerge whole from his odyssey within America's prison and judicial systemsis a triumph of the human spirit, and makes his book a clarion call to reformthe inhumanity of solitary confinement in the U.S. and around the world.  Arrested often as a teenager in New Orleans, inspired behind bars in his early twenties to join the Black Panther Party because of its social commitmentand code of living, Albert was serving a fifty-year sentence in Angola for armed robbery when on April 17, 1972, a white guard was killed. Albert and anothe rmember of the Panthers were accused of the crime and immediately put in solitaryconfinement by the warden. Without a shred of actual evidence against them, their trial was a sham of justice that gave them life sentences in solitary. Decades passed before Albert gained a lawyer of consequence; even so, sixteen more years and multiple appeals were needed before he was finally released inFebruary 2016. Remarkably self-aware that anger or bitterness would have destroyed him insolitary confinement, sustained by the shared solidarity of two fellow Panthers, Albert turned his anger into activism and resistance. The Angola 3, as they became known, resolved never to be broken by the grinding inhumanity and corruption that effectively held them for decades as political prisoners. He survived to give us Solitary, a chronicle of rare power and humanity that proves the better spirits of our nature can thrive against any odds. 'This breathtaking, brutal, and intelligent book will move and inspire readers.' Publishers Weekly

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Product Information

Shotlisted for the Pulitzer Prize for Nonfiction 2020

General Fields

  • : 9781911231271
  • : Text Publishing Company
  • : Text Publishing Company
  • : 0.588
  • : March 2019
  • : ---length:- '23.4'width:- '15.3'units:- Centimeters
  • : books

Special Fields

  • : 448
  • : 1903
  • : Paperback
  • : Albert Woodfox