List of memoirs of political prisoners

A memoir is an autobiographical writing normally dealing with a particular subject from the author's life. The following is a list of writers who have described their experiences of being political prisoners. Those included in the list are individuals who were imprisoned for activities ranging from peaceful dissent to violent revolutionary activity. Some were citizens of the countries whose regimes imprisoned them and others were foreign nationals. What connects them is that they have written about their experience of having been imprisoned because of their political opposition or political identity.

Note, too, that the list omits many autobiographies which deal, only in part, with a period of political imprisonment; and includes some in which imprisonment forms a major part of the book.

• Henri Alleg, author of The Question. 1958. New York: George Braziller. (theme: denunciation of torture in French colonial Algeria)

• Brendan Behan, author of Borstal Boy. 2000. David R. Godine. (theme: resistance to British imperialism) Note that Bortal Boy is one of comparatively few memoirs written by a juvenile political prisoner.

• Alexander Berkman, author of Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist. 1999. New York: New York Review of Books Classics. (theme: common criminals are people too) ISBN 09403224X

• Breyten Breytenbach, author of The True Confessions of a White Terrorist. 1985. New York: Farrar Straus & Giroux. ISBN 0374279357 (theme: subjectivities of imprisonment)

• Francois Bizot, author of The Gate. 2003. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN 037541293X (themes: criticism of the ignorance of Western decision-makers and intellectuals about Cambodia, complex character of Khmer Rouge leader Duch, bravery and betrayal)

• Nien Cheng, author of Life and Death in Shanghai. 1986. London: Grafton Books. ISBN 0586071156 (theme: denunciation of Maoism)

• Stuart Christie, author of Granny Made Me An Anarchist: General Franco, The Angry Brigade and Me. 2004. London: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0743259181 (theme: denunciations of sectarian hatred in Scotland and of statist authoritarianism, including British imperialism, American imperialism, Francoism, Stalinism and Trotskyism)

• Lena Constante. 1995. The Silent Escape: Three Thousand Days in Romanian Prisons. Trans: Franklin Philip. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 00520082095 (theme: denunciation of Ceaucescu's National Communism)

• Václav Havel, author of Letters to Olga. Samizdat publication, 1988 in English. Henry Holt & Company. ISBN 0805009736 (theme: phenomenology of imprisonment)

• Haing S. Ngor, author of Haing Ngor: A Cambodian Odyssey. (written with Roger Warner) 1987. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company. ISBN 002589330 (theme: denunciation of Khmer Rouge crimes)

• Kang Chol-Hwan, author of Aquariums of Pyongyang: Ten Years in a North Korean Gulag. (written with Pierre Rigoulet) 2000. New York: Basic Books. ISBN 0495011012 (theme: denunciation of Juche)

• Lee Soon Ok, author of "Eyes of the Tailess Animals: Prison Memoirs of a North Korean Woman". 1999. ISBN 0882643355 (theme: denunciation of Juche)

• Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela; Little Brown & Co; ISBN 0-3165-4818-9 (paperback, 1995) (theme: overcoming apartheid in South Africa)

• Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, author of The Gulag Archipeligo, 1918-1956: An Experiment in Literary Investigation. 1973. New York: Harper & Row. ISBN 0060139145 (theme: denunciation of Stalinism)

• Jacobo Timmerman, author of Preso Sin Nombre, Celda Sin Numero/Prisoner Without a Name, Cell Without a Number. 1985. Buenos Aires: El Cid. (themes: denunciations of Argentine rightist authoritarianism and anti-semitism)

• Leon Trotsky, author of My Life. 1970. New York: Pathfinder Press. ISBN 873481445 (themes: denunciation of Tsarism, revolutionary inspiration) Note the interesting descriptions of political prison and internal political exile in Siberia under Tsarism.

• Loung Ung, author of First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers. 2000. New York: Perennial. ISBN 0060931388 (themes: denunciations of Khmer Rouge brutality and racism)

• Mordechai Vanunu, author of Letters from Solitary, a book of letters from Vanunu to Rev. David B. Smith of Sydney, Australia. Vanunu is a political activist who exposed Israel's possession of nuclear weapons, was kidnapped by Mossad, tried in secret, and sentenced to eighteen years in prison. Available as PDFs: Light version (http://www.fatherdave.org/Books/Letters%20from%20Solitary%20SE.pdf) - Full version (http://www.fatherdave.org/Books/Letters%20from%20Solitary.pdf) with reproductions of each letter.