Prison Notebooks (Vol. 1)

Written by Gramsci during the long period he was imprisoned in the dungeons of the Italian fascist dictatorship, the notebooks constitute one of the most important works of political theory of this century.

This Brazilian edition of the Prison Notebooks was organized by Carlos Nelson Coutinho, internationally recognized as one of the greatest experts on Gramsci's thought, with the collaboration of Luiz Sérgio Henriques, editor of the online magazine Gramsci e o Brasil, and Marco Aurélio Nogueira, associate professor at the São Paulo State University.

“Antonio Gramsci was arrested on November 8, 1926. At his trial before the Special Tribunal for the Defense of the State eighteen months later, the fascist prosecutor declared: 'We must prevent this brain from functioning for twenty years.' In half that time, Gramsci—who died without having achieved full freedom, on April 25, 1937, at the age of 46—produced a body of work that would later distinguish him as one of the most important intellectual figures of the 20th century.

This Brazilian edition of Gramsci's notebooks has been produced with the utmost care. It aims to make Gramsci's text, notoriously complex due to its fragmentary and incomplete nature, accessible to the reader; but at the same time, it aims to provide this reader with a clear view of the richness and complexity of the multidirectional critical inquiry research project that Gramsci undertook in prison, in opposition to the reactionary forces that sought to silence him. - Joseph A. Buttigieg

"Gramsci helped Marxists free themselves from vulgar Marxism. The strength of his intellectual commitment lies in the fact that it was not a purely academic commitment. Praxis stimulated and fertilized his theory, until it represented its ultimate goal. We are grateful to Gramsci not only for the constant intellectual stimulus he represents, but for having taught us that the effort to transform the world is not only compatible with original, subtle, and open-minded historical thought, but that, without it, it is an impossible endeavor." -Eric J. Hobsbawm