Captive Books seeks to make prison stories part of the national literary geography and in La Furia del Libro 2024 we begin this path. Our activities to disseminate and build teams among those of us who work in prisons were successful: the collective reading of the emblematic book by María Carolina Geel, Women’s prisonadded to the presentation of the magazine letter factory, written inside and outside of prisons, was the perfect setting for the workshop attended by the majority of public and private actors linked to the deprivation of liberty, in addition to the two guest editorials. Together we took the first steps to edit these captive stories in large or small formats, but in a professional manner, so that they transcend their ideal reader and can reach a broader audience.
During the meeting, we reflected on the impact that the books that capture these stories have inside and outside of prisons. We agree, based on our experience, that inside inspire, model and promote reading and writing. Outside, they present human and complex dimensions of those who experience the deprivation of liberty in our country.
In this scenario, the contest for the representation of people deprived of liberty is unequal; The traditional media defines those who break the law again and again in a biased way, but reaching thousands of people in a single broadcast. While the few books that address or describe this world impact a minority sector of the population simply because they are not well edited or do not have a distribution strategy that ensures the circulation of their contents.
We analyze two books that transcended and set a precedent, The river by Alfredo Gómez Morel, published in 1962, and Women’s prison, first published in 1956; the first written during the deprivation of liberty of its author and that addresses life on the banks of the Mapocho River, and the second that describes for the first time the lives of imprisoned women. Both books with major reprints and reissues.
Returning to the initial question How and why to edit prison stories? Hands were raised to make the first proposals that came in the voices of the editors. These voices were joined by the institutions that presented, from their work, ideas and opinions. There were concrete offers that needed to be given shape and told when they became a reality. What I can tell is the willingness to work as a team to record life in prison in this object of social valuation called a book.
I must note, however, that although what is written behind bars is mostly about what happens inside, it is not the only thing. There is a life before and a projection of the future outside the spaces of confinement. Autobiography is almost always the form chosen to narrate, but it is also written in the third person and about events that have not occurred and that perhaps will never take place.
There are unexpected authors and readers in prisons who wake up with a literary workshop and who surprise those of us who have the privilege of reading their writings or listening to their comments. Something that we should all experience at some point in our childhood or youth; realize that we have a talent to develop that can accompany us throughout our lives. Because reading and writing are essential skills that allow us not only to communicate but to belong to and understand the world around us. But what can we offer as a country to a writer or a voracious reader deprived of liberty? Nothing concrete yet, but improving this answer is the raison d’être of Captive Books and the work of the Public Letters Cultural Center.
The hour passed, suddenly we had to say goodbye. We agreed that this was the first meeting, an unprecedented space to get to know each other and team up towards an edition, the first of many. A publication that captures the stories of prison or of authors in deprivation of liberty, so that their stories do not disappear into the oblivion of orality.
