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Inside Literary Prize Judges Discuss the 2025 Shortlist

Jul 14, 2025

300 judges. 15 prisons. 4 books. 1 winner.

Hear from the 2025 Inside Literary Prize judges from Edna Mahan Correctional Facility in New Jersey as they discuss the four shortlisted books for this year’s prize: Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah; This Other Eden by Paul Harding; On a Woman’s Madness by Astrid Roemer, translated from the Dutch by Lucy Scott; and Blackouts by Justin Torres. These titles were selected by a Selection Committee comprising incarcerated readers, writers, and Departments of Corrections librarians, who chose from the list of Finalists for the 2023 National Book Awards for Fiction and Translated Literature.

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Find out more about this year’s Prize and the 2025 Inside Literary Prize Winner, Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah below.

2025 Inside Literary Prize