Yenna Wu is a distinguished teaching professor at the University of California, Riverside.Simona Livescu is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Interest in prisons, particularly in the US, has been increasing in the past ten years or so, but for the most part the interest has led to scholarly or popular books detailing the extent of incarceration. Works devoted to prison writing have tended to be anthologies--among the recent ones, Bell Gale's Doing Time (2011). The current volume is surprising in that Wu (comparative and Chinese literature, Univ. of California, Riverside) and Livescu (PhD candidate, UCLA) focus on the aesthetics of past and present political prison literature, from Mao's forced-labor camps to Morocco's gender-biased justice system. The "aesthetics" in general--whether marked by decentered "rhizomatous forces" (to quote Wu) or articulating a quest for freedom--is seen in relation to the central problem of the material: the inexpressibility of the political prisoner's experience. Steering clear of broad sociological theories about repression or authoritarianism, the essays have a laudable sobriety, treating prison writings as imperfect evocations of torture, attempts at resistance, and even expressions of happiness in captivity. The wide geographical scope of the volume adds to the sense of objectivity. A fascinating and welcome book. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower- and upper-division undergraduates; faculty; general readers.

• Chapter 1. Probing the Intersections of Human Rights, Suffering, and Aesthetics in Political Prison Narratives: An IntroductionChapter 2. Reviving Muted Voices: Rhizomatous Forces in Political Prison LiteratureChapter 3. Surviving Traumatic Captivity, Arriving at Wisdom: An Aesthetics of Resistance in Chinese Prison Camp MemoirChapter 4. The Argument From Silence: Morocco's Truth Commission and Women Political PrisonersChapter 5. The Persistence of Spectacle in PRC Modes of Punishing Criminality and DevianceChapter 6. The Cocoons of Language: Torture, Voice, EventChapter 7. A Primer for the Politics and Literature of Resistance: Apparitional Subjectivity in The Collective Autobiography of the New York 21Chapter 8. Remembering Pain in Uruguay: What Memories Mean in Carlos Liscano's Truck of FoolsChapter 9. Deviating from the Norm? Two Easts Testify to a Prison Aesthetics of Happiness

Yenna Wu is a distinguished teaching professor at the University of California, Riverside.Simona Livescu is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Interest in prisons, particularly in the US, has been increasing in the past ten years or so, but for the most part the interest has led to scholarly or popular books detailing the extent of incarceration. Works devoted to prison writing have tended to be anthologies--among the recent ones, Bell Gale's Doing Time (2011). The current volume is surprising in that Wu (comparative and Chinese literature, Univ. of California, Riverside) and Livescu (PhD candidate, UCLA) focus on the aesthetics of past and present political prison literature, from Mao's forced-labor camps to Morocco's gender-biased justice system. The "aesthetics" in general--whether marked by decentered "rhizomatous forces" (to quote Wu) or articulating a quest for freedom--is seen in relation to the central problem of the material: the inexpressibility of the political prisoner's experience. Steering clear of broad sociological theories about repression or authoritarianism, the essays have a laudable sobriety, treating prison writings as imperfect evocations of torture, attempts at resistance, and even expressions of happiness in captivity. The wide geographical scope of the volume adds to the sense of objectivity. A fascinating and welcome book. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower- and upper-division undergraduates; faculty; general readers.

• Chapter 1. Probing the Intersections of Human Rights, Suffering, and Aesthetics in Political Prison Narratives: An IntroductionChapter 2. Reviving Muted Voices: Rhizomatous Forces in Political Prison LiteratureChapter 3. Surviving Traumatic Captivity, Arriving at Wisdom: An Aesthetics of Resistance in Chinese Prison Camp MemoirChapter 4. The Argument From Silence: Morocco's Truth Commission and Women Political PrisonersChapter 5. The Persistence of Spectacle in PRC Modes of Punishing Criminality and DevianceChapter 6. The Cocoons of Language: Torture, Voice, EventChapter 7. A Primer for the Politics and Literature of Resistance: Apparitional Subjectivity in The Collective Autobiography of the New York 21Chapter 8. Remembering Pain in Uruguay: What Memories Mean in Carlos Liscano's Truck of FoolsChapter 9. Deviating from the Norm? Two Easts Testify to a Prison Aesthetics of Happiness

Yenna Wu is a distinguished teaching professor at the University of California, Riverside.Simona Livescu is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Interest in prisons, particularly in the US, has been increasing in the past ten years or so, but for the most part the interest has led to scholarly or popular books detailing the extent of incarceration. Works devoted to prison writing have tended to be anthologies--among the recent ones, Bell Gale's Doing Time (2011). The current volume is surprising in that Wu (comparative and Chinese literature, Univ. of California, Riverside) and Livescu (PhD candidate, UCLA) focus on the aesthetics of past and present political prison literature, from Mao's forced-labor camps to Morocco's gender-biased justice system. The "aesthetics" in general--whether marked by decentered "rhizomatous forces" (to quote Wu) or articulating a quest for freedom--is seen in relation to the central problem of the material: the inexpressibility of the political prisoner's experience. Steering clear of broad sociological theories about repression or authoritarianism, the essays have a laudable sobriety, treating prison writings as imperfect evocations of torture, attempts at resistance, and even expressions of happiness in captivity. The wide geographical scope of the volume adds to the sense of objectivity. A fascinating and welcome book. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower- and upper-division undergraduates; faculty; general readers.

• Chapter 1. Probing the Intersections of Human Rights, Suffering, and Aesthetics in Political Prison Narratives: An IntroductionChapter 2. Reviving Muted Voices: Rhizomatous Forces in Political Prison LiteratureChapter 3. Surviving Traumatic Captivity, Arriving at Wisdom: An Aesthetics of Resistance in Chinese Prison Camp MemoirChapter 4. The Argument From Silence: Morocco's Truth Commission and Women Political PrisonersChapter 5. The Persistence of Spectacle in PRC Modes of Punishing Criminality and DevianceChapter 6. The Cocoons of Language: Torture, Voice, EventChapter 7. A Primer for the Politics and Literature of Resistance: Apparitional Subjectivity in The Collective Autobiography of the New York 21Chapter 8. Remembering Pain in Uruguay: What Memories Mean in Carlos Liscano's Truck of FoolsChapter 9. Deviating from the Norm? Two Easts Testify to a Prison Aesthetics of Happiness