An American Radical Political Prisoner in My Own Country by Susan Rosenberg

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT:
Vida Engstrand, Ph: (212) 407-1573
Email: vengstrand@kensingtonbooks.com

SUSAN ROSENBERG’S 16 YEARS AS A POLITICAL PRISONER COME TO LIGHT IN NEW MEMOIR
- AN AMERICAN RADICAL: Political Prisoner in My Own Country to be published March 1,
2011
Early Praise for AN AMERICAN RADICAL:
“Articulate and clear-eyed, Rosenberg’s memoir memorably records the struggles of a
woman determined to be the agent of her own life.”
– Kirkus Review
“Rosenberg takes us on an astonishing journey--from a tiny underground revolutionary
cell into the vast underground of the American penal system...an impassioned
memoir.”
– Bell Gale Chevigny, editor of Doing Time
“Deeply moving, lyrically written...Everyone who cares about justice and our future
will want to read and share this heartening book.”
– Blanche Wiesen Cook, author of Eleanor Roosevelt
“Compelling...will rouse readers to forge ahead with their own commitments to
genuine patriotism through opposition to oppression.”
– Don Hazen, Executive Editor, AlterNet.org
“Gripping...a harrowing story that is painfully personal and an important part of
American history.”
– Christian Parenti, author of Lockdown America

***
In 1982, long-time radical activist Susan Rosenberg was placed on the FBI’s
most-wanted list with orders of “shoot to kill.” In 1984, she and Timothy Blunk were
unloading a U-Haul filled with 740 pounds of explosives at a storage facility in
Cherry Hill, New Jersey, when the FBI arrived. Rosenberg was sentenced to 58 years
in federal prison and spent the next 16 horrific years in some of the worst maximum
security woman’s prisons in the country.
Rosenberg served time in six different federal institutions and endured the first
ten years in varying degrees of seclusion, including stints in the first
experimental high security unit (HSU) for women and in the first maximum-security
prison for women in the United States. At HSU she was regularly stripsearched,
heavily chained, and subjected to intense psychological torture such as complete
isolation, sleep deprivation, twenty-four hour lighting, and constant surveillance.
Susan and others in conjunction with the ACLU prison project, and the support of
Amnesty International fought and won the closing of this experiment. Rosenberg went
on to other prisons, later working in general population as an HIV peer educator and
teacher until she was granted executive clemency by President Bill Clinton, in
January
2001.
Candid and eloquent, Susan Rosenberg’s powerful memoir is a profound indictment of
the U.S. prison system, as she recounts her journey from the impassioned idealism of
the 1960s to life as a political prisoner in her own country–and reflects America’s
turbulent coming-of-age over the past half century.
SUSAN ROSENBERG has been a speaker, educator, and lecturer to those concerned with
the issues of women in prison, political prisoners, prison reform, and social
justice activism. Since 2004, Rosenberg, has served as the director of
communications at a faith-based human-rights organization working to alleviate
poverty, hunger, and disease in the developing world. Rosenberg received a BA in
American history from the City University of New York and an MA in writing from
Antioch University. She lives in New York City.
Please visit www.AnAmericanRadical.com for more information.
AN AMERICAN RADICAL: Political Prisoner in My Own Country
By Susan Rosenberg
March 2011 / Memoir / Trade Paperback Original /$14.95 / 978-0-8065-3304-9
Author Residence: New York, NY
www.AnAmericanRadical.com