Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah: Dystopian Fiction & the Carceral System
This learning guide provides a brief overview of Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah’s work. It includes discussion questions to guide conversations and activities for students and learners of all ages.
Written and Edited by: Ilhy Gomez Del Campo Rojas, Lauren Cooper. Kathy Aguilera, Khalil Deka, Amaya Denson, Olivia Fried, Abbey Leibert, and Andrew Serrao
Environmental Storyteller Spotlight: Fiction Writer Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah was raised in Spring Valley, New York, and now lives in the Bronx. His debut collection, Friday Black, was a New York Times bestseller, won the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award and the William Saroyan International Prize for Writing, and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle’s John Leonard Award and the Dylan Thomas Prize. His first novel Chain-Gang All-Stars was a finalist for the National Book Award for Fiction, shortlisted for the Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize and the Books Are My Bag Awards, and selected as a New York Times Top Ten Books of the Year. Adjei-Brenyah is a National Book Foundation’s ‘5 Under 35’ honoree.
Dystopia Now: Speculative Fiction’s Approach to Social Justice
Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah specializes in speculative and dystopian fiction that pushes against the edges of our own reality. For Adjei-Brenyah that dystopia is not far off in the future, it’s right around the corner. “I want to make T-shirts that say “Dystopia Now,” said Adjei-Brenyah in an interview. “The book is dystopian, but I think right now is dystopian. There are as many people in slavery today as there ever have been. Mega power nations are killing people all the time…Chain-Gang is dystopian because it’s worse than right now, but what does dystopian even mean?”
Adjei-Brenyah, a graduate of Syracuse University’s MFA in Creative Writing program, is the award-winning author Friday Black and Chain Gang All Stars. Setting his stories in dystopic or speculative worlds that shine a damning light on our own reality, his fiction asks the reader to “imagine the future” and its relationship to our present. By loosening the strictures of straight realism, Adjei-Brenyah’s fiction is able to explore and critique the larger systems and ideas that haunt and shape our current society.
As a genre, speculative fiction tends to be loosely defined, which suits its malleable and experimental nature. Genres such as fantasy, horror, science fiction or alternative history all fall into the bucket of speculative fiction, which at its core simply marks a departure from realism. Often what sets speculative fiction apart from these other genres is its commitment to social critique.
Authors who gravitate toward speculative fiction use it as a means through which to comment on contemporary issues of social, environmental, and racial justice. By offering us a version of reality which departs from but resembles our present, speculative fiction allows us to look with fresh eyes at things we have previously taken for granted, and points up some of the deeply unjust aspects of our society that we have normalized within the present.
In a discussion about the novel, Adjei-Brenyah points to speculative fiction as a means for him to open doors for his imagination. The novel specifically tackles the injustices of the U.S. carceral system through the depiction of an imagined future of the United States prison system. In the novel, incarcerated individuals facing long-term sentences have a choice to become “gladiators” for three years. These gladiatorial death matches pit incarcerated people against each other, as they are forced to abandon their humanity in a gamble to win their freedom. In this imagined world, Adjei-Brenyah is able to tackle the brutal and dehumanizing reality of those living in and affected by the carceral system. The novel highlights the way the American carceral system profits off the mistreatment of incarcerated people as it functions as a modern-day version of enslavement, one which we are often encouraged to ignore.
Adjei-Brenyah finds speculative fiction to be creatively freeing, because he isn’t bound to the realities of a specific place. As he notes in an interview, if he had instead written a novel or nonfiction book about the Louisiana State Penitentiary or another specific prison, he would have been limited to writing specifically about that real-life location. With speculative fiction he has the ability to pick and choose the aspects of a broader topic he wants to emphasize. For Adjei-Brenyah, “speculative fiction is very malleable; it's like a Play-Doh or a clay that I can make anything out of.”
Fiction is an immersive genre, bringing the reader into the world crafted by the author. This can pose a danger for fiction aimed at trenchant social critique. Because of the medium’s very nature, it can be easy for the reader to forget the real-world implications of the text. Reviews of Chain-Gang All-Stars often cite the intoxicating, sport-like depictions of violence in the gladiatorial games. Adjei-Brenyah didn’t want the spectacle of the fictive world to overshadow the reality of the US carceral system. As he noted in an interview, he “ wanted, always, to be able to remind us that as sort of intense as the premise of gladiatorial games through the prison system is, we actually live right now with a system that is just as violent.”
Throughout the text, Adjei-Brenyah relies upon footnotes to eradicate any chance of Chain Gang All-Stars being misinterpreted as a story that glorifies violence or uncouples it from our reality. His footnotes play a key ideological role, constantly calling our attention to real world historical facts or contemporary events. In one of the footnotes, the text reads: “America locks more people in isolation than any other democratic country.” He reminds the reader that slavery is still explicitly permitted as punishment for a crime, and that the federal laws on torture are often disregarded in the treatment of incarcerated individuals. “The speculative nature of the story helped me feel more comfortable getting extremely specific about the brutal statistical realities of prison. I don’t deny I’m writing a dystopia, but dystopia is really just a point of view that depends on your proximity to violence,” said Adjei-Brenyah in an interview.
Understanding the Environmental Impacts of the Carceral System
Prisons are spaces in which ecological and social issues collide. Prisons harm air quality, alter ecosystems, create noise pollution, light pollution, traffic pollution, and may dispose of toxic waste improperly. But carceral spaces are not only harmful to their surrounding environments; they’re harmful inside as well. The majority of the prisons in the U.S. have adopted a retributive brand of justice; this is a justice that believes in disciplining and punishing offenders for breaking rules. It’s a system that dehumanizes individuals and strips them of their human rights.
The isolating and confining nature of incarceration in the U.S. leaves incarcerated individuals vulnerable to safety and health problems that lead to stress, anxiety and depression; an environment that promotes a lack of self-agency can further feelings of hopelessness and despair. These spaces not only allow the cruel treatment of incarcerated individuals, but also create a hazardous space that ultimately harms everyone and everything.
When thinking about environmental justice—thinking of the spaces that we live in and how they’ve been mistreated and harmed, and how to return a healthy balance into those spaces—we must think of the many intersections between environmental and social issues. As stated by David N. Pellow, Professor of Environmental Studies at UC Santa Barbara, “These multiple spaces, sites, and vectors of environmental racism and criminalisation might suggest a revised EJ [Environmental Justice] definition of ‘the environment’ to include those spaces where we live, work, learn, pray, play, and do time.”
Advocates for environmental justice must consider prisons and their relationship with the space around them, as well as the people within them; because after all, in a system that attempts to dehumanize the people within it, it is important to remember the humanity that is there.
Local Initiatives in NYS
Non-profit organizations based in New York State, such as Unchained and the Center for Community Alternatives (CCA), are dedicated to dismantling the prison-industrial complex by working with individuals both inside and outside the carceral system. Unchained focuses on addressing the deep-rooted racial and economic inequalities that fuel mass incarceration by empowering directly impacted individuals through education, advocacy, and leadership development. Meanwhile, CCA provides direct services, policy advocacy, and organizing efforts to support individuals affected by mass incarceration. Committed to justice reform, CCA offers alternatives to incarceration, reentry support, housing assistance, and employment opportunities for those with conviction records. Through grassroots mobilization and legislative advocacy, CCA advances efforts to end mass incarceration and promote civil and human rights for all New Yorkers.
There are many initiatives and organizations that work to empower individuals impacted by mass incarceration.. Project MEND, an initiative founded by Syracuse University professor Patrick W. Berry, works with individuals impacted by the criminal justice system to create the literary journal Mend, which shares the magnificent written and artistic works of people who are or have been directly or indirectly impacted. The publication features an array of writing in fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. These pieces range from reflections on the experience of being incarcerated to exploring genres such as sci-fi fiction. It is important to note that the works do not all focus on incarceration; the publication also features a wide range of themes surrounding love, family, the self, grief, and more.
Some Terms to Know
Environmental Racism: A phrase coined by civil rights leader, Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis Jr. This phrase highlights the intentional and disproportionate placement and effects of polluting and waste facilities in and around neighborhoods and communities of people of color, indigenous people, and low-income workers. This intentional placement has caused multitudes of adverse effects, including mental and physical, to these communities (The Natural Resources Defense Council.
Racial Capitalocene: This term emerged as a scholarly critique of the term ‘Anthropocene,’ “human dominance of biological, chemical and geological processes on Earth.” In contrast, the Racial Capitalocene aims to connect the interlinked histories of imperialism, colonialism, and racism to the physical changes of the Earth due to human consumption of greenhouse gasses. This connection forms a new framing of the changing Earth based on exploitative histories that have caused inequities and disproportionalities socially, economically, and geographically (Verges, 2017). This term can be an explanation of why the carceral system in the United States is so entwined with environmental and climate justice, as it relies on histories of exploitation to continue to dehumanize and impact communities of color.
Green Criminology: A term that creates a perspective in understanding the connection and relations of prisons, and their associated systems, with environmental harms and victimization. To make this connection the term assesses environmental harms to humans, and others, that have been facilitated by the government, corporations, and/or other powers. Green criminology allows for the assessment of these facilitators in how they change, or shape the legality of practices that can and do cause environmental harm (Opsal et al. Layered Sites of Environmental Justice: Considering the Case of Prisons).
Dystopian fiction: A genre of literature categorized under the speculative fiction umbrella. The genre is usually set in a futuristic or alternative society where there exist much inequalities, unrest, and cataclysmic events (Master Class). According to Nana, the world we live in today is dystopian, so he writes in this genre to reflect the severity of the issues and harms we face in our society today as part of his work.
Discussion Questions
How has contemporary fiction helped to reflect global crises such as climate change, pandemics and political unrests? Can these forms of fiction serve as a catalyst for awareness and change?
Environmental justice and health is a conversation about everyone, including folks that have been placed in the carceral system. Who else do you feel is left out of the conversation, and how can we use speculative fiction to bring these experiences to light?
Adjei-Brenyah describes dystopia as “a point of view that depends on your proximity to violence.” How do you feel that your individual experience with climate change has impacted your perception of its severity?
How does the malleability of speculative fiction allow authors like Adjei-Brenyah to address complex societal issues?
Activities & Writing Prompts
Below are prompts and activities for learners of all ages.
What If - Imagining Futures (Designed by ESF Instructor Dr. Jess Fenn
Identify a problem with our world as it is. Now create a story scenario that puts this problem at the center. The scenario can be set in an alternate present, an alternate history, a near future, or another world. Dramatize the problem’s development and its consequences through desire and obstacle, action and reaction, dialogue, character networks, and world-building. Feel free to preface your world with a “what if” question. What if many towns in California became gated communities to keep out climate refugees (Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower)? What if an act were passed that allowed incarcerated individuals to engage in gladiatorial battles for pardons (Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah’s Chain-Gang All-Stars)? Pay special attention to the workings of power in this world.
Ear Hustle Podcast
CONTENT WARNING: Foul language and distressing subjects (mass incarceration)
Ear Hustle is a podcast from Radiotopia that amplifies the experiences of individuals who have and/or continue to be directly or indirectly affected by the US carceral system. The podcast was co-founded by Nigel Poor, Earlonne Woods and Antwan Williams, all of whom were incarcerated at the time of the launch in 2017. Ear Hustle was the first podcast created and produced in a prison and is a collection of stories that portray the true realities of incarcerated individuals.
Listen: Season 1, Episode “Cellies”
How does Earlonne describe the prison cells?
What are some of the rules cellies make to try to get along in such a small space?
What surprised you or stood out to you the most from the episode?
Did listening to Episode 1 affect your perception of incarcerated people? If so, how?
In the short video above, Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah talks about developing different elements that culminate in Chain-Gang All-Stars. Write a response imagining ways to incorporate a more creative and critical lens into elements of your daily life, career, or education. Who are important people to you in your community? How can you transform their qualities into complex character traits in a speculative narrative?
In Adjei-Brenyah’s research process he talks about how he would imagine, for example, the quality of food somewhere to generate topics to further educate himself about. Consider what resources are important in your community. What are places your family often visits? Do you go to the farmers market? How do you get to school? How does something like the weather or traffic sometimes make this challenging?
Consider how using imagination and fiction to speculate alternate realities, like Adjei-Brenyah reimagining prisons, can improve places such as the library for you or someone you know. Imagine ways resources like books or transportation could be made more accessible for you or your neighbor to use. How can using fiction change how we live in and view our own community? How does using your imagination help you feel curious about challenges or opportunities in your community?
Additional Resources
Read some of Nana’s short stories, essays, and interviews.
The Freeing of Melancholia Bishop: Read an excerpt from Nana Kwama Adjei-Brenyah’s acclaimed novel, Chain-Gang All-Stars.
“The Era”: Through the perspective of a high-school-aged boy in a post-war, dystopian world where everything truthful is allowed to be said even if considered rude, and happiness is given through the “good” drug. The boy befriends a girl whose family rejects the way of things, exacerbating the disdain of his friends and family.
“Everything is Lava” When the world went into quarantine and everything seemed dangerous, a mother decided to use “the lava game” to keep her son from touching things, even his face. Told from the perspective of a nervous adult, this short story highlights the struggles of overcoming anxiety in a world that seems to be ending.
“Zimmer Land”: This short story follows a “Zimmer Land” theme park employee who gets paid to be a target of violence to provide people with “opportunities to practice judgement and problem-solving skills.”
Why Do You Write Political Stories? As people, we interact with an inherently political society, and in reflection on the question “Why do you write political stories?”, Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah explains his belief that art will almost always have political implications because of our experiences. Adjei-Brenyah’s experiences have been with issues like social injustices, racism, and consumerism all of which have impacted his writing and driven him to create works that provide commentary on those issues.
“An Open Letter to My Mentors” by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah – LitHub A letter to Adjei-Brenyah’s mentors, thanking them for their part in his growth from reader to writer to teacher/mentor.
Videos with Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
Interview on Late Night with Seth Meyers -
In a late night interview with Seth Myers, Nana Kwame Adjei Brenyah recounts the process of writing and creating his novel, Chain Gang All-Stars, which highlights a seemingly inconceivable world where prisoners are forced to fight each other for entertainment. Adjei Brenyah describes the nuances behind the main characters in Chain Gang All-Stars through his analyses of our current prison and entertainment structures.
In a conversation with Hoda and Jenna of the Today Show, Adjei Brenyah explains the process of developing the main characters in his novel, Chain Gang All-Stars. Adjei Brenyah shares that in order to capture the nuance of the protagonist it was important for him to view the characters as real people, with a perspective of them grounded in love, forgiveness, and conflict.
In a talk with Miwa Messer, Adjei-Brenyah discusses world-building in his books Friday Black and Chain Gang All-Stars. Adjei-Brenyah reveals the intention behind what he writes, down to the syllable, and how he makes the text more dimensional through the use of footnotes throughout the story.
Additional Reading on the Carceral System and the Environment
Struggles for Environmental Justice in US Prisons and Jails
In this article, author David Pellow explores the phenomenon of environmental injustice as a form of criminalization. Pellow considers how struggles both inside and outside of carceral spaces can be linked to practices of abolition ecology and critical environmental justice.
Sustainable Spaces, Sustained Mass Incarceration
In this article, Akhila Ananth examines the history and ties between juvenile incarceration and environmental racism. Ananth argues the need for sustainable and environmentally friendly design to combat environmental racism.
Prisons as LULUs: Understanding Parallels
This paper makes connections between the rise of prisons and environmental justice, bringing both environmental and anthropocentric disciplines into conversation with each other. The author makes the argument that environmental justice work relating to locally undesirable land use (LULU) can provide criminologists with a new frame in which they might examine and understand prison proliferation. The paper uses examples of historical reactions to LULUs (not including prisons) in comparison with the socio-environmental impacts of prisons when they are not treated as LULUs, as well as examining why they may not be treated as such. Layered LULUs and prison-based internal harm is also discussed, using “Prison Valley” and the Cotter Uranium Processing Facility as an example of how prisoners are uniquely affected by nearby LULUs due to their captive status.
