Samenvatting

This article examines why literary fiction (based on extensive research and cooperation with inmates) allows us to understand the reality of being incarcerated sometimes better than non-fictional work or scientific research. Based on her long-term experiences as a creative writing coach in a Dutch prison the author explains why literature is such a great tool for empowerment and developing the talent of inmates, because it creates a ‘free space in prison’, where inmates are (aspired) writers instead of prisoners. She describes in detail how equivalent working relations between her as an ‘outsider’ and inmates have allowed her to create the novel Een van ons (One of us), an intimate story told from the perspective of a prisoner sentenced to life and a writing coach, and how she avoided the clichés of the questions of guilt and stigmatization. Otten explores the ‘unique power’ of fiction as a tool for opening up the closed world of incarceration.