Prison Writings My Life Is My Sun Dance [Paperback]

Edited by Harvey Arden, with an Introduction by Chief Arvol Looking Horse, and a Preface by former Attorney General Ramsey Clark.

In 1977, Leonard Peltier received a life sentence for the murder of two FBI agents. He has affirmed his innocence ever since--his case was made fully and famously in Peter Matthiessen's bestsellingIn the Spirit of Crazy Horse--and many remain convinced he was wrongly convicted.Prison Writingsis a wise and unsettling book, both memoir and manifesto, chronicling his life in Leavenworth Prison in Kansas. Invoking the Sun Dance, in which pain leads one to a transcendent reality, Peltier explores his suffering and the insights it has borne him. He also locates his experience within the history of the American Indian peoples and their struggles to overcome the federal government's injustices.

Leonard Peltieremerged as a Native American leader in the 1960s, was arrested in 1976 in Canada and extradited. He has been in prison ever since and is now confined at Leavenworth.Prison Writingsis his first book.

Harvey Ardenis the author and co-author of several books, includingWisdomkeepersandTravels in a Stone Canoe(both with Steve Wall) andNoble Red Man. He lives in Washington, D.C.

A deeply moving and very disturbing story of a gross miscarriage of justice and an eloquent cri de coeur of Native Americans for redress, and to be regarded as human beings with inalienable rights guaranteed under the United States Constitution, like any other citizens. We pray it does not fall on deaf ears. America owes it to herself. --Archbishop Desmond M. Tutu, Nobel Peace Laureate

For too long, both Leonard's supporters and detractors have seen him as a metaphor, as a public figure worthy of political rallies and bumper stickers, but very rarely as a private man who only wants to go home. I pray this book will bring Leonard home. --Sherman Alexie, author ofIndian Killer