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Inside Literary Prize

The Inside Literary Prize is the first major US book award to be judged exclusively by people who are currently serving prison sentences.

Inside Literary Prize 2025. Freedom Reads, National Book Foundation, Center for Justice Innovation.
Reading brought me something invaluable—a community. For the first time in too long, I connected with women who shared my passion. Together, through literature, we found strength and unity in the most unlikely of places….Tonight, I stand here free, not just from physical confines, but from the isolation that once defined me. Literature gave me life again.”

Lyndie Felsher, 2025 Inside Literary Prize Award Ceremony Special Guest and 2024 Inside Literary Prize judge.

A collaboration between Freedom Reads, the Center for Justice Innovation, the National Book Foundation, and Interabang Books co-owner Lori Feathers, the Inside Literary Prize gives currently incarcerated people across six states the opportunity to leave their mark on the cultural conversation by selecting a winner among four recent books. After visits to each prison to lead discussions with incarcerated people, facilitate the voting process, and host readings with award-winning authors, the jurors—women and men incarcerated in 12 different facilities—select their winner.

There is no question that this is the highest possible honor a book like this could ever receive. I take it to mean those who judged believed I was not careless or callous, that I used language in a way that felt like truth. This retroactive mandate is a gift I can never repay, but one I will forever be grateful for. I want to thank all those Inside, those who judged and those who did not. This award is dedicated to you all.”

NANA KWAME ADJEI-BRENYAH, Winner of the 2025 Inside Literary Prize for Chain-Gang All-Stars.

2025 Shortlist

Shortlist for 2025 Inside Literary Prize

  • Nana Kwame Adjei-BrenyahChain-Gang All-Stars
    Pantheon Books / Penguin Random House
  • Paul HardingThis Other Eden
    W. Norton & Company
  • Astrid RoemerOn a Woman’s Madness
    Translated from the Dutch by Lucy Scott
    Two Lines Press
  • Justin TorresBlackouts
    Farrar, Straus and Giroux / Macmillan Publishers

Read the full press release.

In its second year, the Prize goes from an inaugural event to a tradition, one inspired by the dignity, intelligence, and insights of people who are incarcerated, serving as a reminder of our shared humanity and the power of literature to connect.”

COURTNEY BRYAN, Chief Executive Officer, Center for Justice Innovation

2024 Prize

On August 1, 2024, the inaugural Inside Literary Prize was awarded to South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation by Imani Perry at a moving event held at the New York Public Library.

2024 Winner: Imani Perry
Awarded to Imani Perry
Inside Literary Prize, the First Major US Book Prize Judged Exclusively by Incarcerated People, Awarded to Imani Perry
update

Inside Literary Prize, the First Major US Book Prize Judged Exclusively by Incarcerated People, Awarded to Imani Perry

Aug 2, 2024

2024 Nominations

The books nominated for the Prize—all National Book Award-honored books—were selected by a committee of incarcerated people, writers, and librarians with the Department of Corrections.

Through the reading and judging of leading American literary works, the Inside Literary Prize competition will provide a national platform for incarcerated individuals to meaningfully participate in our shared national cultural conversation. Freedom begins with a book.”

REGINALD DWAYNE BETTS, Founder and CEO: Freedom Reads