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A review by analenegrace
Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
challenging
dark
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
5.0
This is an incredibly important book that explores the American prison system in a future not that far from our own. I heard from the author at the 2024 Tulane Book Fest in New Orleans, LA, and knew it had to be moved further up my TBR.
I am an abolitionist and this book only pushes me further towards prison abolition. The world it presents is one that seems dystopian and futuristic, but really, it is not all that far off. I live in Louisiana, where Angola prison is located, which was once a slave-holding plantation and became a prison almost immediately after the end of chattel slavery in the US, continuing to be a place where slavery is legal (because slavery is not fully illegal for those imprisoned). It holds a Rodeo each year where imprisoned people participate in this violent event and sell crafted items to the audience. It is a horrifying event not unlike the future this book posits.
Prisons are racist, violent institutions that cannot be fixed or repaired. They must be abolished.
I am an abolitionist and this book only pushes me further towards prison abolition. The world it presents is one that seems dystopian and futuristic, but really, it is not all that far off. I live in Louisiana, where Angola prison is located, which was once a slave-holding plantation and became a prison almost immediately after the end of chattel slavery in the US, continuing to be a place where slavery is legal (because slavery is not fully illegal for those imprisoned). It holds a Rodeo each year where imprisoned people participate in this violent event and sell crafted items to the audience. It is a horrifying event not unlike the future this book posits.
Prisons are racist, violent institutions that cannot be fixed or repaired. They must be abolished.
"I’m going to call on the great Ruth Wilson Gilmore to remind us what abolition is. 'It is meant to undo the way of thinking and doing things that sees prison and punishment as solutions for all kinds of social, economic, political, behavioral, and interpersonal problems.'"