Dead Man Walking: A Graphic Adaptation of Sr. Helen Prejean’s Eyewitness Account

In this graphic adaptation of Sister Helen Prejean’s bestselling memoir, acclaimed artist Catherine Anyango Grünewald and writer Rose Vines bring to striking visual life the story of a nun who becomes a fierce advocate against the death penalty.

＂The now legendary story of Dead Man Walking has been heard and seen by millions. This updated, graphic presentation is yet another way for others, hopefully a new generation, to witness the inhumane treatment of those in our prisons.＂--John Grisham

Growing up in a middle-class Roman Catholic family in the Jim Crow South, Sister Helen Prejean had resisted the idea that religious faith could be harnessed into social justice until dramatic changes sweeping the Catholic Church in the 1960s and ’70s landed her in the heart of the New Orleans housing projects.

There, she was asked to write a letter to Patrick Sonnier--a man sentenced to die in Louisiana’s electric chair for the murder of two teenagers. When Sonnier wrote back, Prejean’s life irrevocably altered course. She came to know a man who was as terrified as he had once been terrifying, as well as the victims’ families and the men who were charged with putting Sonnier to death.

For more than four decades, Prejean has worked alongside the convicted, as well as the families of victims, to abolish the death penalty, a sentence often determined by race, economic status, and geography.

This graphic adaptation of Prejean’s memoir offers an accessible way to engage with one of the most complex moral and emotional issues facing our country. Rose Vines skillfully interlaces recent developments with the original account, amplifying its relevance for today’s readers. Catherine Anyango Grünewald’s illustrations urge us to grapple with the humanity of this story, drawing an evocative, unforgettable portrait of mercy and justice.

Helen Prejean, C. S. J., is a writer, lecturer, and community organizer who was born in Baton Rouge and has lived and worked in Louisiana all her life. Her groundbreaking firsthand account of the death penalty, Dead Man Walking, has been adapted into a movie, an opera, and a play for high schools and colleges. She is also the author of The Death of Innocents: An Eyewitness Account of Wrongful Executions. She has lectured extensively on the subject of capital punishment and has appeared on 60 Minutes, NBC’s Today Show, NPR’s Weekend Edition and Fresh Air, PBS’s Frontline, BBC World Service radio, and an NBC special series on the death penalty. She has received honorary degrees from colleges and universities across the United States. She is a member of the Congregation of St. Joseph.

www.sisterhelen.org