Non-Fiction Literature
Literature for Teaching Human Rights
An Annotated Bibliography
Nancy Flowers, Curriculum Coordinator
Amnesty International USA 1989
Updated and edited by Lory Schwedes (1999) and by Mollie Smith (2002)
Reproduced with permission
Agosin, Marjorie. Surviving Beyond Fear: Women, Children, and Human Rights in Latin America. Fredonia: White Pine Press, 1998.
Marjorie Agosin has compiled essays, interviews, and analysis about the different human rights situations in Latin America as seen by the women and children.
Afkhani, Mahnaz (Country). Women in Exile. University of Virginia, 1994.
Women in Exile is a book of non-fiction women writers. The book includes the most notable narratives of "Fatima Ajmed Ibrahim," "Hala Deeb Jabour," "Sima Wali," and "Azar Salamat."
Americas Watch and the Women’s Rights Project. Untold Terror: Violence Against Women in Peru’s Armed Conflict. New York: Human Rights Watch, 1992.
This report documents the violence against women that occurred during the internal armed conflict in Peru during the 1980’s and 90’s. During the conflict between the national armed forces and the subversive group, Shining Path, violence was concentrated in Peru’s Andean regions where the indigenous population suffered at the hands of the national as well as rebel forces. Indigenous women suffered unique forms of violence and repression, some of which are documented in this report.
Angelou, Maya (United States). I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Random House, 1970.
This work is Angelou’s autobiography about her heartbreaking childhood with her grandmother in segregated Arkansas.
Arenas, Reinaldo ( Cuba). Before Night Falls. New York: Viking, 1993.
The memoir of Cuban poet and novelist Reinaldo Arenas (1943-1990) describes his search for freedom amidst a life of strict governmental control. He speaks of the sexual revolution that was happening in Cuba alongside of the Cuban Revolution. He also describes his persecution both for being gay and for writing in a way that was seen to threaten the stability of the regime.
Argentina. Comision Nacional sobre la Desaparicion de Personas. Nunca más: the Report of the Argentine National Commission on the Disappeared. New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1986.
The final report of the Argentine truth commission established to investigate the disappearance of persons during the military dictatorship (1976-1986).
Axelsson, Sun; Leander, Brigitta; Silva Cáceres, Raúl. Evidence on the terror in Chile. London: The Merlín Press, 1974.
This book is a compilation of personal testimonies of political prisoners in Chile describing the acts of torture committed against them.
Barrios de Chungara, Domitila, with Moema Viezzer (Bolivia). Let Me Speak! Testimony of Domitila, A Woman of the Bolivian Mines. Monthly Review, 1979.
Let Me Speak! is the story of the courageous wife of a Bolivian miner who witnesses the labor organizing of Bolivian workers and attends an international women’s conference.
Bendt, Ingela and James Dowling. We Shall Return: Women of Palestine. Zed Press, 1982.
This story of Palestinian women is told by women and girls of all ages who live in the refugee camps. It is a short work, easily read and understood with extensive illustration.
Bhardan, Kalpana. Of Women, Outcastes, Peasants, and Rebels. University of California, 1990.
Especially see "Letter from a Wife," "Dhowli," "A Female Problem at a Low Level," and "Haimanti."
Bitton-Jackson, Livia (Czechoslovakia). I Have Lived a Thousand Years: Growing Up in the Holocaust. New York: Scholastic, Inc., 1997.
In this book, Bitton-Jackson, a Jewish woman born in Czechoslovakia, shares her recollections of her confinement in the notorious Auschwitz death camp and her travels to the United States after the U.S. Army liberated Auschwitz in 1945.
Also: Elli: Coming of Age in the Holocaust. Times Books, 1980.
Bitton-Jackson tells of the sudden descent of the Nazis upon her village and her removal to Auschwitz, the struggles to keep her mother alive after she is paralyzed in an accident, and other memories of her experiences in Auschwitz.
Bould, Geoffrey, ed. Conscience, Be My Guide: An Anthology of Prison Writings. Zed Books, 1991.
Conscience, Be My Guide is a collection of writings and narratives of censured writers.
Cabrezas, Omar (Nicaragua). Fire from the Mountain. Crown, 1985.
Cabrezas, who was a Sandinista guerilla, discloses his side of the Nicaraguan revolution and civil rights struggle.
Casas, Bartolomé de las ( Spain). The Devastation of the Indies: A Brief Account. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1974.
Las Casas, a Spanish Dominican friar in the Americas during the Spanish Conquest, makes an attack on the encomienda system, describing the severe mistreatment of the native population by the Spanish encomenderos. The Dominican directs his writing to the Spanish Crown, arguing for the abolishment of the encomienda.
Casas, Bartolomé de las (Spain). History of the Indies. New York: Harper & Row, 1971.
Las Casas, a Spanish Dominican friar in the Americas during the Spanish Conquest, describes in this document the severe mistreatment of the native population by the Spanish encomenderos as well as the great dying of the indigenous population in the Americas.
Casas, Bartolomé de las (Spain). The Only Way. New York: Paulist Press, 1991.
Las Casas, a Spanish Dominican friar in the Americas during the Spanish Conquest, proposes a new society, one in which the Europeans and the indigenous can live together in harmony – his proposition opposes the encomienda system which enables forced labor and conversion to Christianity through the use of violent methods. Las Casas denounces the use of violence as a means to force labor and evangelize; instead insisting that peaceful evangelization is possible.
Catholic Institute for International Relations.; Latin America Bureau. Guatemala, never again ! Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1999.
This report details the findings of an investigation on the involvement of the Guatemalan government in the massacres and other human rights violations that occurred during the country’s civil war.
Chung, Nien (China). Life and Death in Shanghai. Grove Press, 1987.
Refusing falsely to admit to "Capitalist crimes," the author endures years of prison and persecution. Her story is told against the background of the Communist revolution in China and the Cultural Revolution, which sweep away both her old life and all her family.
Colijn, Helen (East Indies). Song of Survival: Women Interned. Ashland, OR: White Cloud Press, 1995.
In Song of Survival, Colijn, a Dutch woman whose family lived in the Netherlands East Indies at the time of the Second World War, writes about the Japanese invasion of the islands, her family’s attempts to flee the onslaught, and their eventual capture and detention in Japanese prison camps. Colijn also recounts how the imprisoned women created original musical scores that helped to sustain them in the face of brutality, hunger, and death. Song of Survival inspired the movie Paradise Road.
Criddle, J.D. To Destroy You Is No Loss: The Odyssey of a Cambodian Family. Anchor, 1987.
The story of one young woman and her family struggling for survival during the Pol Pot regime and their eventual flight to Thailand. The final chapters describe the refugee camps in Thailand where the family awaits resettlement in the United States.
Cuevas, Tomasa. Prison Women. Trans. and Ed. Mary E. Giles. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998.
This book contains a compilation of women’s testimonies on their experiences of incarceration in Spain during the War and postwar time.
Dann, Sam, ed. (United States/Germany). Dachau 29 April 1945: The Rainbow Liberation Memoirs. Texas Tech University Press, 1998.
This work tells the story of the liberation of Dachau by the U.S. Rainbow Division, 42nd Infantry. The book contains the eyewitness accounts of the Rainbow Division soldiers who entered Dachau and those who survived internment in Dachau, official military reports of the liberation, and interviews with those who lived just outside Dachau’s walls.[1]
De Jesus, Carolina Maria (Brazil). Child of the Dark: The Diary of Carolina Maria De Jesus. New American Library, 1962.
This journal, by a semi-literate resident of one of Rio de Janeiro’s barrios, records the hardships of life among the urban poor as well as the author’s indomitable spirit.
Diaz, Nidia. I Was Never Alone: A Prison Diary from El Salvador. Ocean Press, 1992.
I Was Never Alone tells the story of an El Salvadoran revolutionary leader whose imprisonment led to an international human rights campaign.[2]
Dorfman, Ariel ( Chile). Heading South, Looking North: A Bilingual Journey. New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1998.
The Chilean author’s memoir describes, among many things, the election of Salvador Allende, Dorfman’s ties with Allende during the few years that he was in office, and the coup d’état that resulted in Allende’s death as well as the exile of many of his followers, including Dorfman himself.
Dowd, Siobham. This Prison Where I Live: The Pen Anthology of Imprisoned Writers. Cassell Academic, 1996.
This Prison Where I Live is an anthology of prison writings from censored authors.
Ewen, Aleaxander. Voice of Indigenous Peoples: Native People Address the United Nations. Clear Light Publishing, 1994.
This work recounts various stories of human rights violations shared by indigenous people with the United Nations. The Preface is by Rigoberta Menchu and the Foreward is by Boutros Boutros-Ghali. The book also includes the United Nations Draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (available on-line at: humanrts.umn.edu/instree/declra.htm).
Friedlander, Albert. Out of the Whirlwind. Schocken, 1989.
Out of the Whirlwind is an anthology of fiction, history, and personal narratives arranged thematically.
Glatstein, Jacob. Anthology of Holocaust Literature. Macmillan, 1973.
This collection includes both fiction and primary source material.
Gourevitch, Philip. We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda. Picador USA, 1999.
In his book, Gourevitch shares both his personal stories of his visits to Rwanda and the stories of the Rwandans he interviewed while there. By sharing these heart-wrenching accounts of genocide and tragedy, Gourevitch hopes to demonstrate to those living outside of Rwanda “why the Rwandan genocide should not be written off as just another tribal dispute.”[3]
Gray, Ian and Moira Stanley, eds. A Punishment in Search of a Crime: Americans Speak Out Against the Death Penalty. Avon Books, 1989.
A Punishment in Search of a Crime is a collection of personal statements of opposition to state executions.
Green, Linda. Fear as a Way of Life: Mayan Widows in Rural Guatemala. New York:Columbia University Press, 1999.
The author documents what she has learned from speaking with Mayan women who have been widowed as a result of political violence experienced primarily in indigenous regions of Guatemala. The women tell of their struggles to keep their families together amidst extreme fear and the loss of the male figure.
Hallie, Philip. Lest Innocent Blood Be Shed. Harper Collins, 1985.
In this work, a French village dares to shelter Jewish children during the Nazi occupation.
Havel, Vaclav (Czech Republic). Letters to Olga. Holt, 1989.
Letters to Olga contains letters written by the current president of the Czech Republic between 1979 and 1982 when he was a political prisoner.
Hayslip, Le Ly (Vietnam). When Heaven and Earth Changed Places. Doubleday, 1989.
Le Ly Hayslip recalls her childhood in Vietnam, her imprisonment by the Viet Cong and later flight to the United States.****
Also: Child of War, Woman of Peace (1993)
Herzog, Kristin. Finding their voice: Peruvian women's testimonies of war. Valley Forge, PA: Trinity Press International, 1993.
This book documents Peruvian women’s testimonies of their experiences during the internal armed conflict in Peru during the 1980’s and 90’s.
Hillsom, Etty (Holland). An Interrupted Life: Diaries of Etty Hillsom, 1941-1943. Publisher, Date.
An Interrupted Life is the diary of a young Dutch woman as she moves through increasing hardships toward her death in a concentration camp.
Hochschild, Adam (Congo). King Leopold’s Ghost. Houghton Mifflin Co., 1999.
Hochschild brings to light one of the world’s worst, yet little studied, tyrants: Belgium’s King Leopold. Through the use of historical eyewitness accounts, Hochschild retells the story of King Leopold’s reign of terror over the indigenous people of the Belgian Congo and of how King Leopold brought about the death of four to eight million people during the years 1835-1909.[4]
Jacobs, Harriet A.
(United States). Incidents in the
Life of a Slave Girl. New
York: Oxford University Press, 1988.
Incidents
in the Life of a Slave Girl is the
story of Harriet Jacobs, a slave in North Carolina during the pre-Civil War Era
who entrusted her children to her grandmother and hid in a hidden compartment
above her grandmother’s house in order to avoid the sexual advances of her
owner. After enduring years of
suffering, Jacob managed to escape to the North and becomes one of the first
former female slaves to ever put her story into writing. Jacobs’ book was originally published in
1861 as a testament to the need to abolish slavery in the South.
Jesús, Carolina Maria de (Brazil). Child of the Dark: The Diary of Carolina Maria de Jesus. New York: Dutton, 1962.
This work, which takes the form of a journal, describes the life of Maria Carolina de Jesus, a single woman struggling to raise her children and survive in the slums (afavela) of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. A beautiful story of survival, even amidst extreme hardship, the author maintains her unconquerable spirit.
Kennedy Cuomo, Kerry (United States). Speak Truth to Power: Human Rights Defenders Who Are Changing Our World. New York: Crown Publishers, 2000.
Speak Truth to Power is a collection of interviews by Kerry Kennedy Cuomo of both influential and unknown human rights activists from more than thirty-five countries. Her interviewees range from Desmond Tutu, Elie Wiesel, and the Dalai Lama to a person she calls “Anonymous.” Many of the activists have chosen to try to save others from torture and death even though doing so places them in danger of suffering the same fate. Kennedy Cuomo’s book reveals the miraculous results that have been achieved by seekers of justice from around the world.[5]
Kielburger, Craig and Kevin Major (United States). Free the Children: A Young Man Fights Against Child Labor and Proves that Children Can Change the World. Harper Perennial, 1999.
Free the Children tells the story of Craig Kielburger and his Free the Children organization, which he founded at the age of twelve in order to combat child labor around the world. Free the Children is a testament to the power both children and adults can have in the fight against international human rights violations.[6]
Kingston, Maxine Hong (United States). Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts. Vintage Books, 1989.
Kingston shares her memories of growing up Chinese American in the United States and the various stories her mother shared with her, such as how girls are worthless in China and tales of her mother’s former life in China as a doctor. Part of the book focuses on the story of a legendary/mythical Chinese woman warrior who seeks to avenge the crimes committed against her family, and whose life Kingston sets as a parallel to her own.
Kismaraic, Carole. Forced Out: The Agony of the Refugee in Our Time. Human Rights Watch, J.M. Kaplan Fund, William Morrow & Co., W.W. Norton & Co., Penguin Books Ltd., and Random House Inc., 1989.
An extraordinary collection of photographs, essays, and factual information that movingly conveys the global refugee crisis.
Kuklin, Susan. Irrepressible Spirit: Conversations with Human Rights Activists. G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1996.
Susan Kuklin has compiled a series of interviews with human rights activist with topics ranging from freedom of expression to freedom from bondage to the rights of the child.
Langer, Lawrence L., ed. Art from the Ashes: A Holocaust Anthology. Oxford University Press, 1995.
Art from the Ashes is an anthology of poetry, prose, artwork, and drama about the Holocaust, including works created inside the Terezin concentration camp.4
Laye, Camara (French Guinea). The Dark Child. Noonday Press, 1954.
An insightful view into the world of a child raised in a fromer European colony and the conflicting pressures of his tribal world of shamanism and the French colonial legacy.
Levi, Primo (Italy). Survival in Auschwitz. Simon and Schuster, 1996.
From the publisher’s review on Barnes and Noble's web site: "In 1943, Primo Levi, a twenty-five-year-old chemist and 'Italian citizen of Jewish race,' was arrested by Italian fascists and deported from his native Turin to Auschwitz. Survival in Auschwitz is Levi's classic account of his ten months in the German death camp, a harrowing story of systematic cruelty and miraculous endurance. Remarkable for its simplicity, restraint, compassion, and even wit…"
Also: Return to Auschwitz.
Menchu, Rigoberta, with Elisabeth Burgos-Davis (Guatemala). I, Rigoberta Menchu: an Indian Woman in Guatemala. Verso, 1984.
An autobiography of the Nobel Peace Prize winner, a Guatemalan Indian who has struggled for her people’s rights.
Mercado, Tununa ( Argentina). In a State of Memory. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2001.
In her memoir, Mercado describes the pain of exile, having been herself exiled twice from her homeland of Argentina – As a result of the 1966 coup d’état, Mercado fled to France for three years, only to be exiled again, this time to Mexico, from 1974-1986. One of many Argentineans who fled to Mexico during the military dictatorship, Mercado describes feelings of alienation and statelessness, as well as the struggles of many exiles to maintain their Argentineanness amidst the Mexican culture.
Nyiszli, Miklos Dr. (Hungary/Germany). Auschwitz: A Doctor’s Eyewitness Account. Arcade Publishing, 1993.
This is a memoir by Dr Miklos Nyiszli, a Hungarian Jew and doctor who was sent to Auschwitz and forced to work as a personal assistant to Dr. Josef Mengele, the infamous doctor who performed grotesque experiments on the Auschwitz prisoners. Nyiszli’s book is thought to be one of the best eyewitness accounts of the terrible Auschwitz experience.[7]
Okihiro, Gary Y. Whispered Silences: Japanese Americans and World War II. University of Washington Press, 1996.
Whispered Silences is a photographic and testimonial history of Japanese American experiences with prejudice and internment.***
Partnoy, Alicia (Argentina). The Little School: Tales of Disappearance and Survival in Argentina. Cleis Press, 1986.
This work contains vignettes from captivity when the author was one of the "disappeared" of Argentina.
Also: You Can’t Drown the Fire: Latin American Women Writing in Exile (1988)
Poniatowska, Elena (Mexico). Massacre in Mexico. New York: Viking Press, 1975.
The author includes a collection of testimonies regarding the experience of the 1968 massacre of college students that occurred in Tlatelolco, Mexico.
Quijada Cerda, Anibal (Chile). Barbed Wire Fence. La Habana: Casa de las Américas, 1977.
This work is a testimony on the experience of a political prisoner in the Dawson Island concentration camp after the coup d’état in Chile in 1973.
Ratushinskaya, Irina (Russia). Gray is the Color of Hope. Knopf, 1988.
This work is the autobiography of a Russian poet imprisoned for her dissident views.
Reiss, Johanna. The Upstairs Room. Harper Trophy, 1990.
The Upstairs Room is the true story of two Jewish sisters who are forced to hide in another family’s attic in order to escape the Nazis during the Second World War.
Rieff, David. A Bed for the Night: Humanitarianism in Crisis. Simon & Schuster, 2002.
In this book, Rieff, a noted journalist, shares his disillusionment with humanitarian aid organizations and the Western governments he believes both fund and exploit the aid organizations. Many of Rieff’s opinions are based on what he has witnessed regarding aid organizations in Rwanda, Bosnia, and Afghanistan.[8]
Servicio Paz y Justicia (Uruguay). Uruguay nunca más: Human Rights Violations, 1972-1985. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1992.
This report documents the testimonies of victims who suffered political persecution and human rights violations perpetrated by the military dictatorship in Uruguay (1973-1985).
Shehadeh, Raja
(Palestine). Strangers in the
House: Coming of Age in Occupied
Palestine. South Royalton, VT: Steerforth Press, 2002.
In
this book, Shehadeh, a prominent Palestinian lawyer, writes about growing up in
Palestine in the midst of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Shehadeh tells about the murder of his
father, who supported a separate state for Israel, the harassment and random
searches of Palestinians by Israelis, and his human rights work.[9]
Siedlecki, Janusz Nel,
Krystyn Olszewki, Tadeusz Borowski (Poland/Germany). We Were In Auschwitz.
Welcome Rain, 2000.
We
Were In Auschwitz is the disturbing
memoir of three Polish political prisoners who are placed in Auschwitz during
WWII. Although the three began their
time in the concentration camp as laborers faced daily with death, they used
their political clout to move into better positions within the camp. The three author’s voices intertwine,
telling stories of the Jews and Gypsies sent to the gas chambers, the food and
property taken from those who entered the camp, and the medical experiments
performed on prisoners. Perhaps the
most terrifying aspect of the book is the fact that the three, when no longer
faced with death, seek to profit from the other prisoners and find their life
in Auschwitz to be “banal.”[10]
Sluka, Jeffrey A., ed. Death Squad: The Anthropology of State Terror. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000.
This work presents anthropological case studies of state uses of terror in eight different countries, including Argentina, Northern Ireland, and Indonesia. Within the studies, international anthropologists look at terror from the participants’ point of view and examine the culturally specific uses of terror in each country.[11]
Steinhoff, Johannes, Peter Pechel, and Dennis Showalter. Voices from the Third Reich: An Oral History. New York: Da Capo Press, 1994.
Voices from the Third Reich is a collection of stories pertaining to the Second World War that were recounted to and recorded by Steinhoff, Pechel, and Showalter. The collection provides stories from a variety of viewpoints, including: Nazis, German citizens, Jewish German citizens, German soldiers, and U.S. soldiers. The various stories reveal the real-life voices behind the historical events.
Szymuciak, Moylda (Cambodia). The Stones Cry Out: A Cambodian Childhood, 1975-1980. Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux, 1986.
The Stones Cry Out is a Cambodian girl’s personal experience of war, forced labor camps, the "killing fields", flight, and eventual resettlement. Only courage, will, and her Buddhist faith sustain her as she loses all her family to starvation and maltreatment.
Tateishi, John, ed. (United States). And Justice for All: An Oral History of the Japanese American Detention Camps. Random House, 1984.
In And Justice for All, Tateishi gathers the stories of thirty Japanese Americans who were forced into U.S. detention camps during WWII.[12]
Ten Boom, Corrie (Netherlands/Germany). The Hiding Place. Bantam Books, 1984.
The Hiding Place recounts the true story of Corrie Ten Boom and her sister Betsy – two Dutch women who hid Jewish people in their home during the Second World War, were caught by the Germans, and were sent to various concentration camps. The Hiding Place is a story of faith and survival in the midst of terrible suffering
Timmerman, Jacobo (Argentina). Prisoner Without a Name, Cell Without a Number. Knopf, 1981.
Timerman documents his experiences as a political prisoner during the military junta in Argentina that lasted from 1976-1983.
United States. Human Rights Watch. Human Rights in Cuba: The Need to Sustain the Pressure. New York: The Americas Watch Committee, 1989.
This publication of the human rights organization, Human Rights Watch describes the violation of human rights as they were occurring in Cuba at the time of the report. Each section in this book discusses a different right that is commonly violated in Castro’s Cuba, such as the freedoms of expression, of association, of privacy, of movement and of due process. Actual cases are documented in support of the facts presented.
Valdés, Hernán ( Chile). Diary of a Chilean concentration camp. London: Gollancz, 1975.
In this book, the author documents his own experience of torture in the Chilean concentration camp known as “Tejas verdes”.
Valls, Jorge (Cuba). Twenty Years and Forty Days: Life in a Cuban Prison. America’s Watch Report, 1986.
This book is a personal account of a prisoner under Castro.
Vassiltchikov, Marie (Germany). Berlin Diaries, 1940-1945. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1987.
Berlin Diaries contains the diary of Marie Vassiltchikov during the years of 1940-1945. Vassiltchikov, a White Russian whose family was forced to flee Russia when the Red Army took control of the country, lived in Berlin during most of the Second World War. A faithful diarist, Vassiltchikov recorded the everyday events of her life, which ranged from attending parties simply to get food, to enduring daily bombing raids by the Allies. Vassiltchikov also recounts her connections to the German conspirators who attempted to assassinate Hitler. Berlin Diaries provides an excellent look at the everyday existence of a young woman in Germany during WWII.
Wartski, Maureen Crane (USA). A Boat to Nowhere. Signet, 1980.
A Boat to Nowhere is a novel by an American who spent the first 17 years of her life living in Japan.
Weschler, Lawrence (Brazil/Uruguay). A Miracle, a Universe: Settling Accounts with Torturers. University of Chicago Press, 1998.
A Miracle, a Universe is a non-fiction novel set in Brazil and Uruguay that tells the true stories of torture victims in fledgling democracies banding together to face their torturers, who are members of the current security force left over from the former regime.[13]
Wiesel, Elie (Israel). From the Kingdom of Memory: Reminiscences. Summit Books, 1990.
From the Kingdom of Memory is a collection of Wiesel’s personal essays and speeches, including Wiesel’s testimony at the trial of Klaus Barbie, which reflect Wiesel’s memories about his life before and his struggles after the Holocaust.[14]
Wiesel, Elie (Israel). Night. Bantam, 1960.
Night is the personal narrative of a young boy who survives the Holocaust with his life but not his faith.
Also: Dawn and many others.
Wilkinson, Daniel (Guatemala). Silence on the Mountain: Stories of Terror, Betrayal, and Forgetting in Guatemala. Houghton Mifflin Co., 2002.
Silence on the Mountain is a personal account of Wilkinson’s travels to Guatemala and the stories of Guatemalans who suffered through the thirty-six year internal power struggle within the country. Wilkinson shares his interviews of various Guatemalans, including members of the town of Sacuchum who told him of how the army tortured, raped, and murdered people in the town because the army believed the people supported the guerillas. Wilkinson also discusses the origin and effect of the political and social problems Guatemala faces.[15]
Winner, David and Peter Benenson: Taking a Stand Against Injustice-Amnesty International. Gareth Stevens, 1991.
This book is a biography of the founder of Amnesty International.
Women of South Asian Descent Collective. Our Feet Walk the Sky: Women of the South Asian Diaspora. Aunt Lute Books, 1993.
Especially see "Can You Talk Mexican," and "Journal Entry," "Origins," "Pati Dev," "Alone and Exploited," and "To Motiba and Grandma."
Woods, Donald (South Africa). Biko. Peter Smith, 1983.
A journalist who has come to know human rights activist Steven Biko relates his investigation of Biko’s death at the hands of South African police, as well as the journalist’s own subsequent censure and exile.
Wu, Harry (China). Bitter Winds. Wiley, 1994.
Bitter Winds is an autobiographical account of Wu’s nineteen years in a Chinese forced-labor camp and his two daring returns to China to document these "gulags" after he had escaped to America.
Also: Troublemaker: One Man’s Crusade Against China’s Cruelty (1996)