48 Memoirs of imprisonment

Frantsishak Alyakhnovich was a Belarusian writer, journalist of Szlachta origins.

The Ballad of Reading Gaol is a poem by Oscar Wilde, written in exile in Berneval-le-Grand, after his release from Reading Gaol on 19 May 1897. Wilde had been incarcerated in Reading after being convicted of gross indecency with other men in 1895 and sentenced to two years' hard labour in prison.

Banged Up Abroad is a British documentary/docudrama television series created by Bart Layton that was produced for Channel 5 and that premiered in March 2006. Most episodes feature stories of people who have been arrested while travelling abroad, usually for trying to smuggle illegal drugs, although some episodes feature people who were either kidnapped or captured while they were either travelling or living in other countries. Some episodes have featured real-life stories that first became well known when they were made the subject of a film: films that have been 're-made' in this way include Midnight Express, Goodfellas, The Devil's Double, Argo, Mr Nice and, to a lesser extent, Casino.

Born Fighter is an autobiographical book written by Reginald Kray. In 1969 he and his twin brother Ronnie Kray received life sentences for the murders of George Cornell and Jack McVitie. First published in London in 1990 in hardback by Century and paperback in 1991 by subsidiary Arrow Books.

Musa Cälil was a Soviet Tatar poet and resistance fighter. He is the only poet of the Soviet Union who was simultaneously awarded the Hero of the Soviet Union award for his resistance fighting, and the Lenin Prize for having written The Moabit Notebooks; both the awards were awarded to him posthumously.

Cell 2455, Death Row: A Condemned Man's Own Story is a 1954 memoir that is the first of four books written on death row by convicted robber, rapist and kidnapper Caryl Chessman. Sentenced to death in 1948 under California's Little Lindbergh Law, Chessman became internationally famous for waging a legal battle to stay alive and fight his conviction and death sentence through voluminous appeals. Chessman became a cause célèbre for the movement to ban capital punishment. Before he was executed in 1960, he was the longest-lived death row inmate in history.

The Damage Done is a book by Australian Warren Fellows. It portrays his time in the notorious Bangkwang prison, nicknamed "Big Tiger". Fellows was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1978, convicted of heroin trafficking between Bangkok, Thailand and Australia.

A Damaged Mirror is a 2014 "novelized" memoir by Yael Shahar and Ovadya ben Malka. The book explores the moral dilemmas of a former member of the Birkenau Sonderkommando, Ovadya ben Malka. The book was reissued in 2015 with a new Foreword by Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo.

Dialogue with Death, a book by Arthur Koestler, was originally published in 1937 as a section of his book Spanish Testament, in which he describes his experiences during the Spanish Civil War. Part II of the book was subsequently decoupled from Spanish Testament and, with minor modifications, published on its own under the title Dialogue with Death. The book describes Koestler’s prison experiences under sentence of death. The book was written in the late autumn of 1937 immediately after his release from prison, when the events were still vivid in his memory.

The Eikon Basilike, The Pourtrature of His Sacred Majestie in His Solitudes and Sufferings, is a purported spiritual autobiography attributed to King Charles I of England. It was published on 9 February 1649, ten days after the King was beheaded by Parliament in the aftermath of the English Civil War in 1649.

Escape: The True Story of the Only Westerner Ever to Break out of Thailand's Bangkok Hilton is a 2007 book by career smuggler David McMillan describing his time and escape from Klong Prem Central Prison in Bangkok, Thailand.

Fish: A Memoir of a Boy in a Man's Prison is the memoir of T. J. Parsell. It tells the story of his experience in the Michigan prison system where he was exposed to sexual abuse from fellow inmates. It exposes many injustices and is a prime example of flaws in the US prison system. It takes place in the 70s. The book has received praise from a variety of sources.

Julius Fučík was a Czechoslovak journalist, critic, writer, an active member of Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, and part of the forefront of the anti-Nazi resistance. He was imprisoned, tortured, and executed by the Nazis.

Guantánamo Diary is a 2015 memoir written by Mohamedou Ould Slahi, whom the United States held, without charge, for fourteen years. Slahi was one of the few individuals held in Guantánamo Bay detention camp whom US officials acknowledged had been tortured. The 2015 edition was heavily redacted by US intelligence officials. In 2017 a "restored edition" was published with redactions removed.

Guantanamo: My Journey is the autobiography of David Hicks, an Australian who was held in the US Guantanamo Bay detention camp for five and a half years before eventually pleading guilty to the charge of "material support to terrorism" in a military commission trial. The first 174 pages of the book details his early life, and subsequent standard military training in Kosovo, Pakistan and Afghanistan. The book heavily details Hicks' time spent in Guantanamo Bay prison following his capture in 2001. The book is the first published account by Hicks of his time spent at Guantanamo Bay and the events leading up to his arrest. In August 2011 assets from the book were frozen as the Commonwealth DPP attempted to pursue Hicks through the courts to stop him profiting from the autobiography. The case was dropped in 2012.

The House of the Dead is a semi-autobiographical novel published in 1860–2 in the journal Vremya by Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky, which portrays the life of convicts in a Siberian prison camp. The novel has also been published under the titles Memoirs from the House of The Dead, Notes from the Dead House, and Notes from the House of the Dead. The book is, essentially, a disguised memoir; a loosely-knit collection of facts, events and philosophical discussion organised by "theme" rather than as a continuous story. Dostoevsky himself spent four years in exile in such a prison following his conviction for involvement in the Petrashevsky Circle. This experience allowed him to describe with great authenticity the conditions of prison life and the characters of the convicts.

If They Come in the Morning: Voices of Resistance is a collection of writings about U.S. legal trials and prisons, edited by Angela Davis and published in 1971. Contributors included Black Panther Party members and the Soledad Brothers. As Davis' first book, it contains description of her experiences in prison. The book was positively received by African-American and communist media of the time.

In the Belly of the Beast is a book written by Jack Henry Abbott and published in 1981.

In the Labyrinth (1986) is a novel by John David Morley.

In the Presence of Mine Enemies: 1965–1973 – A Prisoner of War is a memoir by American pilot Howard E. Rutledge, co-written with his wife and Mel and Lyla White, of his time in a Vietnamese POW camp during the Vietnam War. When it was published it was the first book-length firsthand treatment of the experiences of American prisoners of war in Vietnam. It was made into a documentary in the same year.

The Last Girl: My Story of Captivity, and My Fight Against the Islamic State is an autobiographical book by Nadia Murad in which she describes how she was captured and enslaved by the Islamic State during the Second Iraqi Civil War. The book eventually led to the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize being awarded to Murad.

The Long Holiday is a French novel by Francis Ambrière that chronicles the lives of French prisoners of war between 1940 and 1945. It was first published in 1946 and in that year was also awarded the 1940 Prix Goncourt, which previously had been missed because of the German invasion of France. The novel was translated in 1948 by Elaine P. Halperin as The Long Holiday. It was reissued in a definitive version in 1956 entitled Les Grandes Vacances, 1939-1945.

Long Walk to Freedom is an autobiography written by South African President Nelson Mandela, and first published in 1994 by Little Brown & Co. The book profiles his early life, coming of age, education and 27 years in prison. Under the apartheid government, Mandela was regarded as a terrorist and jailed on the infamous Robben Island for his role as a leader of the then-outlawed African National Congress (ANC). He later achieved international recognition for his leadership as president in rebuilding the country's once segregationist society. The last chapters of the book describe his political ascension and his belief that the struggle still continued against apartheid in South Africa.

Makes Me Wanna Holler: A Young Black Man in America (1994) is an autobiographical and debut book by Nathan McCall.

Akinwande Oluwole Babatunde Soyinka, known as Wole Soyinka, is a Nigerian playwright, novelist, poet, and essayist in the English language. He was awarded the 1986 Nobel Prize in Literature, the first sub-Saharan African to be honoured in that category. Soyinka was born into a Yoruba family in Abeokuta. In 1954, he attended Government College in Ibadan, and subsequently University College Ibadan and the University of Leeds in England. After studying in Nigeria and the UK, he worked with the Royal Court Theatre in London. He went on to write plays that were produced in both countries, in theatres and on radio. He took an active role in Nigeria's political history and its campaign for independence from British colonial rule. In 1965, he seized the Western Nigeria Broadcasting Service studio and broadcast a demand for the cancellation of the Western Nigeria Regional Elections. In 1967, during the Nigerian Civil War, he was arrested by the federal government of General Yakubu Gowon and put in solitary confinement for two years.

Memoirs of a Revolutionist is Peter Kropotkin's autobiography and his most famous work.

Midnight Express is a 1977 nonfiction book by Billy Hayes and William Hoffer about Hayes's experience as a young American who was sent to a Turkish prison for trying to smuggle hashish out of Turkey. The book was adapted by Oliver Stone and directed by Alan Parker into a 1978 feature film of the same name that took many liberties with the book.

My Life as a Traitor is a 2007 biography and memoir, written by Zarah Ghahramani and Robert Hillman. The book documents the life of Ghahramani, including her early childhood. In 2001, Ghahramani was arrested for citing crimes against the Islamic Republic of Iran and sent to serve a sentence in Evin Prison; this is one of the main focuses throughout the book, as well as the prison conditions and analysing the modern-world Middle East. The book was first published on December 26, 2006 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. The book won the award for Australian Small Publisher of the Year for 2006.

My Story is an autobiographical book written by Ronnie Kray. He, along with his twin brother Reggie, were said to be some of the most feared gangsters in British history.

Never Say Die is a memoir by Jack Hawkins, a lieutenant with the United States's 4th Marines in World War II. It was first published in 1961.

One Day in My Life is an autobiographical novel written by Bobby Sands while serving a fourteen-year sentence at Long Kesh, for possession of a gun as a member of the Irish Republican Army.

Orange Is the New Black: My Year in a Women's Prison is a 2010 memoir by American author Piper Kerman, which tells the story of her money laundering and drug trafficking conviction and subsequent year spent in a federal women's prison.

Papillon is an autobiographical novel written by Henri Charrière, first published in France on 30 April 1969. Papillon is Charrière's nickname. The novel details Papillon's purported incarceration and subsequent escape from the French penal colony of French Guiana, and covers a 14-year period between 1931 and 1945.

Jean Pasqualini was a French and Chinese journalist who wrote a memoir of his experiences as a political prisoner in the Laogai labor camp system. Born in Beijing, Jean Pasqualini was the son of a Chinese mother and a Corsican French father. His Chinese name is rendered as Bao Ruowang, with "Bao" representing the first syllable in Pasqualini and "Ruowang" being a phonetic rendering of Jean.

Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist is Alexander Berkman's account of his experience in prison in Western Penitentiary of Pennsylvania, in Pittsburgh, from 1892 to 1906. First published in 1912 by Emma Goldman's Mother Earth press, it has become a classic in autobiographical literature.

The Railway Man is an autobiographical book by Eric Lomax about his experiences as a prisoner of war during World War II and being forced to help build the Thai–Burma Railway for the Japanese military. The book won the NCR Book Award and the PEN/Ackerley Prize for autobiography.

James Robinson "Robbie" Risner was a Brigadier General and a fighter pilot in the United States Air Force.

Scum of the Earth is a memoir by Anglo-Hungarian writer Arthur Koestler in which he describes his life in France during 1939-1940, the chaos that prevailed in France just prior to the outbreak of the Second World War and France’s collapse, his tribulations, internment in a concentration camp, and eventual escape to England, via North Africa and Portugal. It was first published by Jonathan Cape in 1941.

Seven Years in Tibet: My Life Before, During and After is an autobiographical travel book written by Austrian mountaineer Heinrich Harrer based on his real life experiences in Tibet between 1944 and 1951 during the Second World War and the interim period before the Communist Chinese People's Liberation Army invaded Tibet in 1950.

Spanish Testament is a 1937 book by Arthur Koestler, describing his experiences during the Spanish Civil War. Part II of the book was subsequently published on its own, with minor modifications, under the title Dialogue with Death. Koestler made three trips to Spain during the civil war; the third time he was captured, sentenced to death and imprisoned by the Nationalist forces of General Franco. Koestler was at that time working on behalf of the Comintern and as an agent of the Loyalist Government's official news agency, using for cover accreditation to the British daily News Chronicle.

Stolen Lives: Twenty Years In A Desert Jail (1999) is an autobiographical book by Malika Oufkir, about a woman who was essentially a prisoner until she was 38.

Sufferings in Africa is an 1817 memoir by James Riley. The memoir relates how Riley and his crew were captured in Africa after being shipwrecked in 1815. Riley was the Captain of the American merchant ship Commerce. He led his crew through the Sahara Desert after they were shipwrecked off the coast of Western Sahara in August 1815. The book was published in 1817 and was originally titled Authentic Narrative of the Loss of the American Brig Commerce by the "Late Master and Supercargo" James Riley, modernly republished as Sufferings in Africa, and comes down to us today as a startling switch on the usual master-slave relationship.

Jacobo Timerman, was a Soviet-born Argentine publisher, journalist, and author, who is most noted for his confronting and reporting the atrocities of the Argentine military regime's Dirty War during a period of widespread repression in which an estimated 30,000 political prisoners were disappeared. He was persecuted, tortured and imprisoned by the Argentine junta in the late 1970s and was exiled in 1979 with his wife to Israel. He was widely honored for his work as a journalist and publisher.

The Vietnamese Gulag is the autobiography of the Vietnamese pro-democracy activist Doan Van Toai. The book focuses specifically on his arrest and imprisonment by the Communist Vietnamese government, events which precipitated a change in his political belief from lukewarm communist to advocate of democracy.

A Way of Life: Over Thirty Years of Blood, Sweat and Tears is an autobiographical book written by Reginald Kray describing his personal highs and lows throughout his 30 years inside the British prison system. First published in hardback in 2000 by Sidgwick & Jackson and in paperback by Pan Books 2001.

When Hell Was in Session is a memoir by U.S. Navy Rear Admiral Jeremiah Denton, recounting his experiences as an American prisoner of war (POW) during the Vietnam War. A Navy pilot, Denton's jet was shot down over North Vietnam in July 1965. Denton and his navigator, Bill Tschudy, parachuted down and were soon taken prisoner. Both men spent seven years and seven months in North Vietnam as often-tortured POWs. In 1979, the book was made into a television movie starring Hal Holbrook. It was adapted by screenwriter Jake Justiz, also known as Lee Pogostin.

Major Francis Charles Claypon Yeats-Brown, DFC was an officer in the British Indian army and the author of the memoir The Lives of a Bengal Lancer, for which he was awarded the 1930 James Tait Black Memorial Prize.

You Can't Win is an autobiography by burglar and hobo Jack Black, written in the early to mid-1920s and first published in 1926. It describes Black's life on the road, in prison and his various criminal capers in the American and Canadian west from the late 1880s to early 20th century. The book was a major influence upon William S. Burroughs and other Beat writers.