Andy West

Ideas are substitutes for griefs

MARCEL PROUST

By my guilt I further gained the right to intelligence

JEAN GENET

There is no such thing as the prison or the prisoner. There are a multitude of prisons and each person in prison has their own experience.

Whilst this book aims to capture something of that plurality, it is foremost written from my subjective viewpoint as someone who had family in prison and now teaches inside.

Classroom dialogues are drawn from a period of four years

My students in prison are not allowed access to social media; they cannot publish anything in public without the Ministry of Justice’s permission and many of them have difficulties writing.

A lot of them live with a social stigma, which often means their voices are not heard or that they may not wish to talk about their experience if that means outing themselves as a prisoner or ex-prisoner.

I say, ‘Descartes asked this question: is there any way we can prove that we are not in a dream right now?’

‘I know I’m not in a dream because I never dream I’m in prison,’ Jack says.

‘Reality makes sense. All of this makes too much sense to be a dream.

‘So,’ I say, ‘what does the wet dream mean for Descartes’ question?’