From the iron house

"In From the Iron House: Imprisonment in First Nations Writing, Deena Rymhs identifies continuities between the residential school and the prison, offering ways of reading "the carcereal"--That is, the different ways that incarceration is constituted and articulated in contemporary Aboriginal literature. Addressing writers such as Tomson Highway and Basil Johnston along with lesser known authors writing in prison serials and underground publications, this book emphasizes the literary and political strategies these authors use to resist the containment of their institutions." "The first part of the book addresses a diverse sample of writing from prison serials, prisoners' anthologies, and autobiographies to show how these works serve as second hearings for their authors - as an opportunity to respond to the law's authority over their personal and public identities while making a plea to a wider audience. The second part looks at residential school narratives and attends to how the authors construct identities for themselves in was that defy the institution's control. The interactions between these two bodies of writing invite recognition of the ways that guilt is colonially constructed and how these authors use their writing to distance themselves from that guilt." "Offering new ways of reading Native writing, From the Iron House is a pioneering study of prison literature in Canada and situates its readings within international criticism of prison writing. Contributing to genre studies and theoretical understandings of life writing, and covering a variety of social topics, this work will be relevant to readers interested in indigenous studies, Canadian cultural studies, postcolonial studies, auto/biography studies, law, and public policy."--Jacket.