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Brought to you by Penguin

An extraordinarily brave and moving memoir from one of the worlds most famous transparency activists and trans women

In 2010 Chelsea Manning was working as an intelligence analyst for the US Army in Iraq She disclosed 720000 classified military documents that she had smuggled out via the memory card of her digital camera By far the largest leak in history these documents revealed a huge number of diplomatic cables and footage of atrocities She was sentenced to 35 years in military prison

The day after her conviction Chelsea declared her gender identity as a woman and began to transition She was sent to a male prison spent much of that time in appalling conditions in solitary confinement and attempted suicide multiple times In 2017 after a lengthy legal challenge and an outpouring of support President Obama commuted her sentence

READMEtxt is a story of personal revolt resilience and survival Chelsea details the challenges of her childhood and adolescence in Oklahoma and in her mothers native Wales She writes revealingly and movingly about a period of homelessness in Chicago living under Dont Ask Dont Tell in the US Army and the experience of coming to terms with her gender identity and undergoing hormone therapy in prison We witness her Kafkaesque trial and heroic quest for release

This powerful courageous and observant memoir sheds light on the big themes of today identity authenticity technology the authoritarian state and will stand as one of the definitive testaments of our digital informationdriven age

Chelsea Manning is the biggest hero that ever lived Vivienne Westwood
Searing uplifting redemptive The New York Times
Electrifying an insider confessional turned inside out for the 21st century Washington Post

Chelsea Manning 2022 P Penguin Audio 2022