If the publication of Malcolm X’s autobiography marks a pivotal moment in the development of prison literature and a moment of vast promise for prisoners who try to make education a major dimension of their time behind bars,69 contemporary prison practices are systematically dashing those hopes. In the 1950s, Malcolm’s prison education was a dramatic example of prisoners’ ability to turn their incarceration into a transformative experience. With no available means of organizing his quest for knowledge, he proceeded to read a dictionary, copying each word in his own hand. By the time he could
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