This Thursday, Freedom Reads, the National Book Foundation, and the Center for Justice Innovation announced the shortlist for the 2025 Inside Literary Prize.
The Inside Prize is the first-ever US-based literary award to be given by currently incarcerated people. Imani Perry was the inaugural recipient. She was recognized last year for her nation-crossing meditation, South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation.
This year, four novels took the cake.
Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, Chain-Gang All-Stars
Paul Harding, This Other Eden
Astrid Roemer, On a Woman’s Madness
Translated from the Dutch by Lucy Scott
Justin Torres, Blackouts
A jury of 300 incarcerated individuals from prisons across the nation—or to be precise, 25 judges from 12 prisons across six states and territories—will now select the winner after a lengthy voting and discussion process.
The award was designed, in part, to bring incarcerated individuals into a national cultural conversation. In her acceptance speech last summer, Perry expressed “care for those in the grasp of confinement,” and recognized “the intellectual life that exists behind bars.”
