The unbelievable true story of Albert Woodfox, a man who spent forty-three years in solitary confinement in a Louisiana jail for a crime he didn't commit.
Albert Woodfox was born in 1947 in New Orleans. A committed activist in prison, he spoke to a wide array of audiences, including the Innocence Project, Harvard, Yale, and other universities, the National Lawyers Guild, as well as at Amnesty International events in London, Paris, Denmark, Sweden, and Belgium. He died in 2022.
‘[A] book that is wrenching… Woodfox’s story makes [for]
uncomfortable reading, which is as it should be. Solitary should
make every reader writhe with shame and ask: What am I going to do
to help change this?’
*Washington Post*
‘This breathtaking, brutal, and intelligent book will move and
inspire readers.’
*Publishers Weekly [starred review]*
‘An important story for these times...An astonishing true saga of
incarceration that would have surely faced rejection if submitted
as a novel on the grounds that it never could happen in real
life.’
*Kirkus Reviews*
‘Sage, profound and deeply humane, Albert Woodfox has authored an
American testament. Solitary is not simply an indictment of the
cruelties, absurdities and hypocrisies of the criminal justice
system, it is a call to conscience for all who have allowed these
acts to be done in our name.’
*Jelani Cobb*
‘Solitary is the stunning record of a hero’s journey. In it a
giant, Albert Woodfox, carries us boldly and without apology
through the powerful, incredibly painful yet astonishingly
inspiring story of a life lived virtually in chains. He is, as
readers will learn, a ‘Man of Steel.’’
*Mike Farrell*
‘[A] profound book about friendship … told simply but not
tersely…If the ending of this book does not leave you with tears
pooling down in your clavicles, you are a stronger person than I
am.’
*New York Times*
‘In beautifully poetic language that starkly contrasts the world
he's describing, Woodfox awes and inspires. He illustrates the
power of the human spirit, while illuminating the dire need for
prison reform in the United States. Solitary is a brilliant blend
of passion, terror and hope that everyone needs to experience.’
*Shelf Awareness [starred review]*
‘[H]eart-rending…“We must imagine Sisyphus happy,” Camus famously
wrote, and such a prompt is the ennobling virtue at the core of
“Solitary.” It lifts the book above mere advocacy or even memoir
and places it in the realm of stoic philosophy.'
*New York Times*
‘A very good read...an educational book with an inspiring character
at its core. [Woodfox] writes beautifully and is to be
congratulated for his dignified survival and the role model he has
eventually become.’
*Otago Daily Times*
‘A stringent, clear-eyed memoir by a man who served more than 40
years of solitary confinement at Angola for a murder he did not
commit.'
*New York Times*
‘What a mind this man possesses, capable of seeing at and around
things at once. His book should be to prison what Night was to the
conditions Elie Wiesel described in his memoir of the Holocaust: a
psalm of memory, a testimony and a powerful call to action.’
*Literary Hub*
‘Solitary is an intelligent memoir about an unbreakable human
spirit.’
*AU Review*
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