Dead Man Walking
is a work of non-fiction by Sister Helen Prejean, a Roman Catholic nun and one of the Sisters of Saint Joseph of Medaille.
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Background
Prejean has become a leading American advocate for the abolition of the death penalty. Her campaign began in New Orleans, Louisiana, in 1982, through a correspondence she maintained with two convicted murderers.
The first was
Elmo Patrick Sonnier, who was sentenced to death by electrocution. She visited Sonnier in prison and agreed to be his spiritual advisor in the months leading up to his death.
The second was
Robert Lee Willie, for whom she once again served as spiritual advisor.
The experience gave Prejean greater insight into the process involved in executions and she began speaking out against
capital punishment. At the same time, she also founded Survive, an organization devoted to providing counseling to the families of victims of violence.
Name
The title comes from the traditional call in the
United States of "Dead man walking, dead man walking here" from a prison guard as a condemned prisoner is led onto
Death Row. The phrase may have originally come from the 1909 poem by
Thomas Hardy titled
The Dead Man Walking
.
One can question where Hardy heard it from, however, since there is no way to be sure that he coined the phrase. It was originally used to describe a person who was in trouble and about to get punished, or lose his job. This is what originally inspired prison guards to call out these words regarding a condemned man.
Adaptations
Film
In 1995, a film based on the book was made, starring
Susan Sarandon and
Sean Penn.
Opera
The book was also made into an
opera with the same name, composed by
Jake Heggie from a libretto by
Terrence McNally which premiered at the
San Francisco Opera in October 2000. The international premiere of the opera was in January 2006, at the
Calgary Opera in
Calgary,
Canada.
Stage version of the book/film
References