I’m reading the absorbing Shakespeare Saved My Life: Ten Years in Solitary with the Bard by English professor and Shakespeare expert, Laura Bates. Bates grew up in a poor neighborhood with plenty of crime and troubles. After getting her doctorate, she begins teaching in an Indiana prison a few days a week. Her employer, University of Indiana offered courses to prisoners. After awhile she convinces the prison to allow her to teach in prisoners in solitary confinement. Her school’s not on board so she does this for free.
Bates describes the details of the high security section of the prison, all the thick double doors she has to go through and all the perils she must avoid. The heart of the book is her engagement with the convicted murders she works with. Their insights and engagement with the plays are a far cry from what you’d expect from men imprisoned for life. Bates’s book also relates the men’s narratives – how they got where they are. It’s an absorbing read. I’d love to see Steppenwolf or the Chicago Shakespeare Theater dramatize it.
Related articles
- South Africa: Shakespeare Inspired Robben Island Inmates, Including Mandela (ionglobaltrends.com)
- Searching for Shakespeare in Taipei, Taiwan (thepoeticsproject.com)
- Nelson Mandela’s Favorite Shakespeare Passage (themarginalized.com)
- Lost in Translation (shakespeareinthecity.wordpress.com)
OmoresOtempora
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Xingu, Volume 2 
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