Artistic Representation in Petina Gappah’s The Book Of Memory

Abstract

Prison narratives are amongst the growing genres of global literature. Imprisonment has been in existence for a length of time now. The experiences of jailing authors is not something new, very many authors have been jailed as a result of dissimilar political, religious and social reasons. To the the system, the detention of these writers is geared towards 'killing' their Spirit thus making them give up their quest for liberation. Their sentencing though, has only physically encouraged them, making their intellect and thoughts to perforate the high prison walls. They air out their grievance through writing. The earliest forms of Prison narratives were, oral accounts shared among the inmates, and later on, the accounts were written for remembrance. The narratives put forth are autobiographies, poems, Letters and memoirs. Most of the writers narrated their experiences in custody. The written works form a link between the outer world and jail. This study open our eyes on the literariness of prison narratives in; Petina Gappah's The Book of Memory (2015). It endeavours to talk about the artistic expressions of prison life in the selected texts. The study will be a modest contribution to existing criticism of Prison Narratives.