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Interview

“Prison confines the world in small spaces”

Books written by Brigitte Brami carry an impression of walls and confinement: all her works are either inspired by or were completed in prison. Solidarity between women, violence, and body constraints: this is how she perceives prisons.
Prison Insider spoke to Brigitte Brami, a poet and former prisoner, to learn what she thinks about prisons.

My history is embedded in that of the old tradition of stubborn poets; poets who ended up in prison

Prison bends prisoners’ bodies, which in return requires a ‘re-dimensioning’ to adapt to the new perimeters.

Women have come a long way

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Brigitte Brami

Poet and former prisoner

Brigitte Brami was born in 1964 in Tunisia. She lives in Paris.

She published her first collection of poems at the age of 20: La Lune Verte (The Green Moon) (éditions Saint-Germain-des-Prés, 1984). She achieved a DEA (the equivalent of a master’s degree) in performing arts at Paris 3 University, specialising in theatre, then started her doctoral studies in French literature and civilisation. She was the first assistant to the Commissioner Marie Redonnet during the exhibition Jean Genet et le monde Arabe (Jean Genet and the Arab world), organised by the French Cultural Cooperation Service and the French Embassy in Morocco on Jean Genet, her specialism. The author later became famous following her commercial success with her work La prison ruinée, a book that narrates her first prison experience.

During her second incarceration at a prison for women, she finished corrections on Miracle de Jean Genet (Miracles of Jean Genet; L’Harmattan, coll. L’écarlate, 2015). She also contributed to Des Solitudes – Actes du Forum du 6 Décembre 2011, coordinated by Maudy Piot, FDFA association, l’Harmattan Edition, 2013 – and to Du corps imaginaire à la singularité du corps, Actes du Colloque du 11 Avril 2015, coordinated by Maudy Piot, FDFA association, l’Harmattan Edition, 2016. She has written various articles in different journals, notably in Le Passe-Muraille: Thérèse est décédée (Theresa is dead, 2014).