Book
The class : trauma and transformation in an American prison / Chris Hedges.
"Chris Hedges's powerful memoir of his year of teaching inmates in a maximum-security New Jersey prison takes readers into the lives of men who were all but destined to become incarcerated because of their impoverished and dangerous childhoods and shows why criminal justice reform is so essential"-- Provided by publisher.
Record details
- ISBN: 9780735281103 (hardcover)
- Physical Description: 257 pages ; 22 cm
- Edition: First hardcover edition.
- Publisher: Toronto : Alfred A. Knopf Canada, [2021]
- Copyright: ©2021
Content descriptions
| Bibliography, etc. Note: | Includes bibliographical references and index. |
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Available copies
- 1 of 1 copy available at Tsuga Consortium.
Holds
- 0 current holds with 1 total copy.
Show Only Available Copies
| Location | Call Number / Copy Notes | Barcode | Shelving Location | Status | Due Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lakeshore Branch | 365.60922749 Hed | 31681010253524 | NONFIC | Available | - |
- Random House, Inc.
"This book could change everything. It could change our minds. It could buttress our hearts. It could make graspable why todayâs prisons are contemporary slave plantations. I couldnât put it down and I tried." âAlice Walker, author of The Color Purple
A haunting and powerfully moving book that gives voice to the poorest among us and lays bare the cruelty of a penal system that too often defines their lives.
In this unforgettable work, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Chris Hedges, who brought us War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning and America, The Farewell Tour, provides an intimate and moving look at the lives of the students he teaches in a maximum-security prison. He and twenty-eight students (who together are serving a combined sentence of 515 years) read and discussed plays by Amiri Baraka, John Herbert, Tarell Alvin McCraney, Miguel Piñero and August Wilson, among others. Together they set out to write an original play drawing on their experiences of poverty, institutionalized racism, police brutality and mass incarceration. (Their play, Caged, would eventually perform to sold-out audiences and be published as a book in 2020.)
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In The Class, the menâsome of whom know they will die in prisonâgive voice to the struggles of grief, shame, injustice, guilt and generational trauma they and their families have endured, as well as to their hopes and dreams. Hedges chronicles with heart-breaking intimacy the emotional struggle for artistic expression that leads to self-awareness, transformation and redemption. The Class is at once a story of creative triumph and a scorching critique of the racialized poverty that plagues North America and what it does to the most vulnerable.
