The Guitar That Went to Prison
Pham Doan Trang told a friend: if I go to jail someday, do whatever you can so I can play music behind bars.
They came on October 6, 2020. Among the things she asked for: her guitar. (Reuters)
Her friends didn't wait for permission. They took a guitar to former political prisoners and asked them to sign it. The only person in that room who had never seen a jail cell was Trang. Together they carried 87 years of incarceration. The instrument went to a prison 1,000 miles from her mother's house. (Vietopian)
Trang is a writer. In December 2021, after a one-day trial, she was sentenced to nine years for “anti-state propaganda.” She was held incommunicado for over a year; inside she got COVID and arthritis and was denied treatment. (Just Security; Freedom House; RSF)
At her family's first visit in two years, October 2022, they brought the guitar and a pair of slippers. Her feet had swollen too much for them. The guitar, she kept.
PEN America gave her the Freedom to Write Award in 2024. Six years after arrest, still inside; the sentence runs to 2030.
The smallest requests are the loudest claims to still being yourself. She asked for a guitar, not mercy. The rest is just the walls.