The Sun Does Shine: How I found life and freedom on death row

The New York Times bestseller and Oprah's Book Club 2018 Selection.

Winner of the 2019 Moore Prize

 

Finalist, Dayton Peace Prize, 2019

 

"An amazing and heartwarming story, it restores our faith in the inherent goodness of humanity."
- Archbishop Desmond Tutu

 

 

A powerful, revealing story of hope, love, and justice.
In 1985, Anthony Ray Hinton was arrested and charged with two counts of capital murder in Alabama. Stunned, confused, and only twenty-nine years old, Hinton knew that it was a case of mistaken identity and believed that the truth would prove his innocence and ultimately set him free.

 

 

But with no money and a different system of justice for a poor black man in the South, Hinton was sentenced to death by electrocution. He spent his first three years on Death Row at Holman State Prison in agonizing silence--full of despair and anger toward all those who had sent an innocent man to his death. But as Hinton realized and accepted his fate, he resolved not only to survive, but find a way to live on Death Row. For the next twenty-seven years he was a beacon--transforming not only his own spirit, but those of his fellow inmates, fifty-four of whom were executed mere feet from his cell. With the help of civil rights attorney and bestselling author of Just Mercy, Bryan Stevenson, Hinton won his release in 2015.

 

With a foreword by Stevenson, The Sun Does Shine is an extraordinary testament to the power of hope sustained through the darkest times. Destined to be a classic memoir of wrongful imprisonment and freedom won, Hinton's memoir tells his dramatic thirty-year journey and shows how you can take away a man's freedom, but you can't take away his imagination, humor, or joy.

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Average rating: 8.8

176 RATINGS

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4 REVIEWS

Community Reviews

C. Marie
Jul 05, 2024
10/10 stars
Simply mind-blowing to read this book and know this happened during my lifetime. A powerful story of perseverance and will. It was tough to read at times, but worth the push.
smattingly12
Feb 29, 2024
9/10 stars
Heartbreaking story about unfairness and loss, as well as a heartwarming story about true friendship and perseverance.
Karilappin
Dec 28, 2023
10/10 stars
4.5 ⭐️ OMG WTF a must read memoir about the INjustice system. Half a point off for repetition in writing; could have been shorter and told same story.
Anonymous
Oct 14, 2023
10/10 stars
Hands down one of the best books I have ever read! I read a lot written by prisoners and about true crime and this is by far the best one yet. It really makes you think about how we are prob wrong if we are defining a person by the worst act they have committed. As he said we are all guilty of something.
Certainly I agree that no human has the right to take another humans life. The death penalty will
Only cause more innocent people to suffer even if they murder a guilty man, what about that mans family who have done nothing wrong, then they suffer alongside the murder victim. Evil doesn’t breed good no more than good breeds evil.
I cannot sing the praises of this book enough. How ray kept his sanity I will never grasp. Lester is certainly one of the rarest men to walk this earth. Friends like that barely exist in this entire world.

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