Fantastic news! Wilbert Rideau, author of In the Place of Justice, has won the Dayton Literary Peace Prize for Non-Fiction.

In America's then-segregated south, Rideau was sentenced to death for killing a woman in 1961. Then he spent 44 years in a violent prison. The book is his remarkable memoir, a story of redemption against brutal odds, of remorse and of finding love.

It goes beyond Shawshank Redemption for its condemnation and description of the penal system. When in prison, the author produced a documentary, The Farm, nominated for an Oscar.

Young, black and a school dropout, Rideau despaired and decided to rob a bank. In a bungled attempt, he killed a bank-teller, a 50-year-old white woman. When arrested, he confessed.

The book opens with Rideau sentenced to death row from where he starts an amazing journey. In prison, brutality, sexual slavery and local politics confine prisoners in ways that bars alone don't. Yet Rideau finds hope and meaning, becoming editor of the prison magazine and winning national journalism awards.

Full of gritty realism, the book goes far beyond traditional prison memoirs all the way to an emotional, magical end to his prison time. The author lives in Louisiana.

Archana Rao
Faber and Faber, London England

(October 20, 2011)

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