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9781037412011

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Andy West’s tense and intimate book is an education . . . The Life Inside deserves the widest possible readership. -- Geoff Dyer By turns enriching, sobering and at times, heartrending. A tale centering on our inner critic or executioner and how to stifle its constant sniping. A wonder. -- Sir Lenny Henry An authentic, fascinating and deeply moving story about the different ways people search for freedom. -- Terry Waite Written with sensitivity and humanity... a remarkable insight into prison life -- Amanda Brown, author of <i>The Prison Doctor</i> West powerfully interweaves an account of teaching philosophy in prison with his own family’s history of imprisonment, creating an intellectually thrilling memoir of freedom and constraint. -- Alex Marzano-Lesnevich, author of <i>The Fact of a Body</i> Weaving philosophical questions about free will, forgiveness, guilt and shame, with family history and the realities of incarceration. Beautifully written – honest, painful, absurd and sometimes joyful. -- Caitlin Davies, author of <i> Queens of the Underworld</i> A book that every thinking person should read. -- Simon Critchley, author of <i>Continental Philosophy</i> Written with compassion and searing honesty. * The Tablet * The Life Inside is an honest, delicate memoir that doubles as an accessible handbook of philosophical ideas. It expands both heart and mind; I’ll never think about prisons - let alone my own freedom and family - the same way again. -- Ciaran Thapar, author of <i>Cut Short</i> It’s a rare feat for anyone who works in a prison to capture the smell, the flavour and the taste of the fetid air they share with the prisoners in a book . . . More and more compelling with every turn of the page. -- Erwin James, author of <i>Redeemable</i> These are tender, complicated relationships, and there is candour and wisdom - and no little courage - in how West shows them to us. * The New Humanist * West incorporates philosophical, descriptive, and psychological elements as with a fine Dickensian brush he paints a picture of the gritty details of prison life... profoundly moving. * Philosophy Now * Insightful and sophisticated. * TLS * An astonishing, necessary book . . . brilliantly dispels damaging myths about those whose lives are lived inside. -- Lucia Osborne-Crowley Immersing, entertaining and wonderfully empathetic. * The Bookseller * Drawn with great tenderness. * Prospect * One of the best books I've read this year. Moving, witty and profound, it's a powerfully humane book about a part of life that's defined by inhumanity. -- Matt Rowland Hill Poignant, insightful, and full of philosophical substance. * The Philosophers' Magazine * The Life Inside is extraordinary. -- Rob Doyle

Author Information

Andy West has written for The Guardian, Aeon, 3:AM Magazine, Huck, The Big Issue, openDemocracy, Lead, The Times Education Supplement and Bloomsbury. The Life Inside is his first book and has been made into a six-part BBC drama, 'Waiting for the Out'.

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