A Question of Freedom: A Memoir of Learning, Survival, and Coming of Age in Prison

A powerful debut memoir from a published poet and emerging writer.

At the age of sixteen, R. Dwayne Betts- a good student from a lower-middle-class family-carjacked a man with a friend. He had never held a gun before, but within a matter of minutes he had committed six felonies. In Virginia, carjacking is a "certifiable" offense, meaning that Dwayne would be treated as an adult under state law. A bright young kid, weighing only 126 pounds- not enough to fill out a medium T-shirt -he served his eight-year sentence as part of the adult population in some of the worst prisons in the state.

A Question of Freedom is a coming-of-age story, with the unique twist that it takes place in prison. Utterly alone-and with the growing realization that he really is not going home any time soon-Dwayne confronts profound questions about violence, freedom, crime, race, and the justice system. Above all, A Question of Freedom is about a quest for identity-one that guarantees Dwayne's survival in a hostile environment and that incorporates an understanding of how his own past led to the moment of his crime.

R . DWAYNE BETTS

is graduate student at Warren Wilson College, where he has been awarded the Holden Fellowship. Shortly after his release from prison, The Washington Post published a feature article about him and a book club he founded for at-risk young men called YoungMenRead. He teaches poetry at several public schools in the D.C. metro area, has had his poetry published in many national literary journals, and contributed an essay to the anthology It's All Love.