In the second year of the Art For Justice–funded program, five new titles—all authored by women—are selected to continue the Foundation’s work contextualizing mass incarceration through literature, chosen by a five-member committee.
Among the chosen authors is Rachel Kushner (CRF 2016) for her “The Mars Room,” Scribner / Simon & Schuster. Set in the Stanville Women’s Correctional Facility, deep in California’s Central Valley, Rachel Kushner’s novel The Mars Room centers the absurdities of institutionalization as experienced by both the guards and the thousands of women housed in its walls. Romy Hall, a 29-year-old serving two life sentences, plus six years, is the novel’s protagonist who captures the slowness and sameness that is the reality of prison.
Read more on the NBF and the other titles that won, here.