Here are the finalists for the second annual Inside Prize.
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.”
