* There are very few accounts in English of conditions in Indian prisons. Colors of the Cage is a beautifully written, heart-wrenching narrative of perseverance and survival in a time of brutal repression.
* This is a virtually unknown facet of Indian political society even as the country stands on the world stage of trade and diplomacy. As Arundhati Roy states in her endorsement, This country needs many more books like this one.
* Offers readers an internationalist perspective on incarceration as a tool of suppressing domestic dissent in India.
* Fascinating, real-life personal story of political prisoner’s experience in an Indian prison
* What is the social cost of India’s present model of economic development? Colors of the Cage offers behind-the-scenes view of the failings of Indian democracy, often touted as the world’s largest democracy, as told by a democratic rights activist.
* Ferreira is defending himself and the others swept up in the widespread government arrests in 2018 of those accused of sedition and conspiracy against the state in collaboration with the longstanding Naxalite rebellion.
* Arundhati Roy, a supporter of Ferreirs’s campaign for freedom, an activist, and the bestselling author of Walking with the Comrades and The God of Small Things has written a powerful endorsement.
* Coverage of the BJP’s citizenship laws is bringing international attention to Modi’s violent use of the criminal justice system.
* Prison memoirs, from George Jackson to Nelson Mandela to Leila Khaled to Leonard Peltier to Albert Woodfox, have an enduring readership for their evocative themes of endurance, determination, as well as hope that they bring to readers. With the growing awareness that many democratic governments around the world are policing dissent in a time of crisis, Arun Ferreira’s Colors of the Cage portrays both the unbreakable conviction and human spirit that immediately resonates with the established genre of prison memoir, but so too gives us a fresh look at the dark underbelly of Indian democracy.
* Accounts of political resistance and state repression in India that focus on the Naxalites, such as Arundhati Roy’s Walking with Comrades and Alpa Shah’s Nightmarch: A Journey into India’s Naxal Heartlands, have not offered a first-hand perspective of those repressed for their alleged involvement in political dissent.
* Author’s re-arrest and ongoing trial coincides with the recent rise of conflict surrounding India’s occupation of Kashmir and the citizenship laws, depicting a democratic society whose fault lines are exposed through its acts of state repression.
