Inside: prison poems from Argentina

Browsing through Fondo K – Networks of the Argentine Exile – at the CAMeNA archive in Mexico City, I came across a folder entitled Desde la cárcel, containing documents which were apparently part of a book of that title. There were letters and drawings, as well as an annotated manuscript for a Prologue, and a brief introductory note by Arturo Azuela, president of the Mexican Writers’ Association. The main body of the book was clearly meant to be poems and short stories, but there were only very few of these in the folder, and nowhere could I find a copy of the book itself, or the final manuscript.

However, there I found the introduction to a Prologue, which began:

‘In the cells of Argentina, the prisoners write and draw. Most of those who engage in these activities were not writers, poets, or artists; they hadn’t even considered expressing themselves verbally or visually before. Expression becomes a necessity there, a fate embraced by both avid readers and those who hadn’t picked up a book.’

The Director of CAMeNA put me in touch with Alicia Carriquiriborde, who had donated the collection of documents that make up the Fondo K, the archive of the Comisión de Solidaridad de Familiares de Presos, Muertos y Desaparecidos por Razones Políticas en Argentina (CoSoFam México). She still had copies of the original book at her home and sent me one via a friend who was returning to Europe. I decided that there had to be a way to re-publish at least some of it and make it accessible to an English-reading public. I approached the poetry publisher Girasol Press, a not-for-profit press which specializes in translations from Latin American authors and publishes them in an artists’ book format. They were interested, and I included a budget for the publication in a funding application to the British Academy. In July 2024, Girasol Press published the bilingual volume Inside/ Desde la cárcel.

Resistance desde la cárcel

The original Desde la cárcel was published in 1981, with the civic-military regime in Argentina still firmly in power. In its 1981 annual report, Amnesty International referred to around 13,000 victims of enforced disappearance, and there were thousands more political prisoners. Many of these were held under PEN, meaning ‘at the disposal of the national executive’, without charges, a trial, or a release date. Even those who had been put on trial and did serve a sentence, were often not released at the end of their term, but remained imprisoned under PEN. Prisoners were held in dehumanizing conditions, subjected to constant humiliations and to the complete arbitrariness of their captors. Desde la cárcel was published alongside a dossier on these conditions. As an act of resistance, the prisoners created poems, stories, letters, drawings, as well as other artefacts, often intended as gifts for family and friends.

Inside / Desde la carcel includes a selection of 16 poems and drawings from the original Desde la cárcel in Spanish and English, as well as two letters, two posters in circulation at a time, the original Prologue, and the note by Arturo Azuela. The selection was made by editors and translators Daniel Eltringham and Leire Barrera Medrano. Book artist Abi Hoffman designed the cover, working from drawings published in the original book. The grainy paper – Gmund Bier Pils – recalls the type of paper used at the time. It was printed with Risograph, so copies of this edition are unique and cannot be identically reprinted.

Alongside the publication of Inside, a workshop was organised, introducing documents from the work of CoSoFam, CAMeNA, the prisoners, their families, and the process of translation and book design. Some of the documents are disturbing, detailing the impact of atrocities and degrading and dehumanizing treatment. Final-year students from Lancaster University  helped to translate many of the documents on the prisoners and their families. Those wanting to know more should contact c.grabner@lancaster.ac.uk

Desde la cárcel was co-edited by several groups of Argentinians in exile. They held often widely divergent ideological convictions and organisational practice. While CoSoFam was explicitly non-partisan, other groups were affiliated with political movements in Argentina. But the prisoners mattered to all of them.

In a video for the workshop participants, Alicia Carriquiriborde says that the book today can make a political and ethical contribution ‘by bearing witness to this attitude of human beings to rise above misery even under such circumstances, and the possibility to come together even when one does not fully agree ideologically or on how to resolve the political and economic problems of the world’.

We hope that the publication of Inside / Desde la cárcel can make a contribution in this spirit. You can order a copy of the book here: We are grateful for the support of the British Academy as part of the research project Building Critical Hope at the Academic Center for the Memory of Our América: Integrity, Solidarity, Care.

Anyone who would like to know more about the workshop or would like to host a session,, they should please contact c.grabner@lancaster.ac.uk

Main image: the frontage of the ESMA Museum, at the former Upper School for Navy Mechanics, base for illegal detention, interrogation, torture, assassination and forced disappearance of thousands during the ‘Dirty War’. It was converted into a human rights Museum in 2004 and subsequently recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage site.