International Solidarity with Political Prisoners Bundle

In solidarity with political prisoners around the world from Greece to India, from Turtle Island to Palestine, we are offering an exclusive bundle of books by political prisoners. This includes: Colors of the Cage: A Memoir of an Indian Prison by Arun Ferreira, We Want Freedom: A Life in the Black Panther Party by Mumia Abu-Jamal, and Writings From a Greek Prison by Tasos Theofilou.

Policing and incarceration are global crises that consolidate ruling class power through force and violence. When read together, these books that span various political, cultural, and social contexts, explicate the inherent violence of the prison and underscore the necessity to struggle for abolition.

These institutions do not keep us safe but instead aim to shut down resistance. Whether a Black Panther like Mumia, an anticaste democratic rights activist like Arun, an anarchist-communist like Tasos, or a Palestinian like Mohammed and Muna el-Kurd, prisons invisibilize people and our struggles. They are sites of immense violence that must be demolished if anyone is to be free.

Colors of the Cage: A Memoir of an Indian Prison

Arun Ferreira
Foreword by Naresh Fernandes
Introduction by Siddhartha Deb

A powerful eyewitness account of life in an Indian prison shows how abolition is necessary to achieve a democratic transformation of society. 

In May 2007, Arun Ferreira, a democratic rights activist, was picked up at a railway station in western India, detained by the court, and condemned to prison for an expanding list of crimes: criminal conspiracy, murder, possession of arms, and rioting, among others added during his detention. 

In one of the most notorious prisons in India, Arun Ferreira was constantly abused and tortured. Over the next several years, each of the ten cases slapped against him fell apart. At long last, Ferreira was acquitted of all charges. As he exited the prison, moments away from freedom, he was rearrested by plainclothes police. He never got to glimpse his family waiting for him just outside the prison gates. 

In stark and riveting detail, Ferreira recounts the horrors he faced in prison—torture, beatings, the general air of hopelessness—and the small consolations that kept hope alive—strikes and solidarity among inmates. His memoir is a timely reminder that across the globe policing and incarceration are institutions in desperate need of being dismantled.

“Colors of the Cage is indispensable for anyone interested in understanding the failures of India’s criminal justice system. Arun Ferreira’s first-hand testimony makes apparent the arbitrary and pernicious nature of the procedures governing the lives of political prisoners often subject to especially unlawful practices. Ferreira conveys with particular force the devastating effects of incarceration on families torn apart and abandoned to an uncertain future.  His account of the ruinous effects of post-9/11 anti-terror laws is instructive and applies far beyond the Indian context.”  —Nermeen Shaikh, Cohost of Democracy Now! and author of The Present as History: Critical Perspectives on Global Power

“Arun Ferreira gives us a clear-eyed, unsentimental account of custodial torture, years of imprisonment on false cases and the flagrant violation of procedure that passes as the Rule of Law. His experience is shared by tens of thousands of our fellow countrymen and women, most of whom do not have access to lawyers or legal aid. This country needs many more books like this one.” —Arundhati Roy

writings from a Greek Prison

Tasos Theofilou, translated by Eleni Pappa
Preface by Ben Morea

A literary WORK OF BITING REALISM

Tasos Theofilou gives testimony on the brutality of prison life, and its centrality in contemporary capitalism, through a blur of memoir, social commentary, free verse, and a glossary of the idiom used by inmates in Greek prisons.

A political prisoner in Greece from 2012 to 2017, Theofilou’s work centers on exposing the conditions of widespread exploitation and social struggle that persist in Greece as a result of the debt crisis—in prisons as well as in mainstream society. Common Notions’ new imprint, ΔΙΠΛΗ / DIPLI, taking its name from the Greek word “double,” refers to the way in which prisoners from different prisons communicate by way of the double telephone line. With this strategy, two to five prisoners in different locations call the same telephone number at an agreed upon time and the owner of that telephone number, living outside prison, connects them together. Proceeds raised through the DIPLI imprint will support political prisoners.

“My prosecution is part of a comprehensive effort by the Greek political personnel to introduce, implement, and enforce a Law and Order doctrine over the past two and a half decades—an effort which has intensified from 2009–2015. This is a doctrine that entwines the Ministry of Public Order and the Ministry of Justice and is imported by the Greek government as a policy package from the United States. 

I repeat once again, and conclude, that I did not commit the offenses for which I am accused. I did commit, however, the one offense that includes all others. I am an anarchist. In the class war, I chose the side of the excluded and the underprivileged, the prosecuted and the accursed, the poor, the weak, and the oppressed. 

My imprisonment is, on the one hand, the only natural consequence of that choice, and on the other hand, one more field of struggle.”

We Want Freedom: A Life in the Black Panther Party (New Edition)

Mumia Abu-Jamal
Introduction by Kathleen Cleaver

“Mumia Abu-Jamal is one of the most important public intellectuals of our time.”—Angela Y. Davis

Mumia Abu Jamal, America’s most famous political prisoner, is internationally known for his radio broadcasts and books emerging “Live from Death Row.” In his youth Mumia Abu-Jamal helped found the Philadelphia branch of the Black Panther Party, wrote for the national newspaper, and began his life-long work of exposing the violence of the state as it manifests in entrenched poverty, endemic racism, and unending police brutality. In We Want Freedom, Mumia combines his memories of day-to-day life in the Party with analysis of the history of Black liberation struggles. The result is a vivid and compelling picture of the Black Panther Party and its legacy.

Applying his poetic voice and unsparing critical gaze, Mumia examines one of the most revolutionary and most misrepresented groups in the US. As the calls that Black Lives Matter continue to grow louder, Mumia connects the historic dots in this revised/updated edition, observing that the Panthers had legal observers to monitor the police and demanded the “immediate end to police brutality and the murder of Black people.” By focusing on the men and women who were the Party, as much as on the leadership; by locating the Black Panthers in a struggle centuries old—and in the personal memories of a young man—Mumia Abu-Jamal helps us to understand freedom.

The republication of Mumia Abu Jamal’s We Want Freedom: A Life in the Black Panther Party has come right on time. Mumia’s wonderful book is not only about the Black Panther Party and his experiences within it, but it is an urgent exposition of the long history of the Black Radical Tradition. Rich in historical detail and still attuned to ongoing contemporary discussions concerning Black liberation, We Want Freedom provides a new generation of activists, radicals, and revolutionaries with the politics and clarity necessary to sustain today’s movement. Mumia’s critical voice, experience, and analysis in We Want Freedom—written originally from death row—embody the courage and commitment necessary for any social movement to succeed.—Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, author of From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation