Set Me Free: How Shakespeare Saved a Life

Sasà grew up in Naples. He never went to school, and instead grew up with street violence and bloodshed, becoming the leader of a gang of boys who became Camorristi by the age of fourteen. At the age of thirty, he was in prison, his life all but mapped out.

That’s when Shakespeare steps in. At Sasà’s most hopeless point, he is persuaded to join the prison’s drama troupe. In Shakespeare’s Tempest, Sasà stumbles on what he needs to explain the world which has defined his own life.

How Shakespeare Saved My Life is a story about betrayal, forgiveness and, above all, the transformative power of reading.