Today, the Inside Literary Prize, the US’s lone literate prize judged by incarcerated readers, announced its 2026 winner: The Book Censor’s Library, by Bothayna Al-Essa, translated from the Arabic by Ranya Abdelrahman and Sawad Hussain.
The Inside Literary Prize, which was founded successful 2023 by Freedom Reads, the National Book Foundation, the Center for Justice Innovation, and Interabang Books co-owner Lori Feathers, “celebrates the powerfulness of lit by amplifying the insight, humanity, and voices of readers surviving successful situation confinement.”
Each year, the prize curates a shortlist of books antecedently honored by the National Book Foundation, and sends them to prisons crossed the country. This year, astir 200 incarcerated judges considered 5 2024 National Book Award finalists successful Fiction and Translated Literature, and chose The Book Censor’s Library arsenic the winner. (The different finalists were Ædnan by Linnea Axelsson translated by Saskia Vogel, All Fours by Miranda July, Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar, and My Friends by Hisham Matar.)
“I deliberation The Book Censor’s Library is what the satellite needs most,” said Kyra L., a justice astatine Washington Corrections Center for Women, successful a statement. “Without a halfway of literature, each voices are lost. If we don’t support our close to take what matters, past volition beryllium rewritten. No 1 azygous powerfulness should get to choose. Cultural exchange, perspective, and the fostering of ideas volition each beryllium stifled without afloat entree to literature.”
“Books person the powerfulness to link america crossed walls and circumstances,” added Reginald Dwayne Betts, Freedom Reads Founder & CEO. “The Inside Literary Prize brings incarcerated readers into the bosom of our literate conversation, reminding america that erstwhile we see much voices successful conversations astir large books, we punctual ourselves of literature’s intent and anticipation to bring translation and anticipation to people’s lives.”
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