Voice of Witness

Books

Surviving Justice: America's Wrongfully Convicted and Exonerated (2005)

Co-edited by Dave Eggers and Lola Vollen

ISBN 978-1-934781-25-8

Voices from the Storm: The People of New Orleans on Hurricane Katrina and Its Aftermath (2006)

Co-edited by Lola Vollen and Chris Ying

ISBN 978-1-932416-68-8

Underground America: Narratives of Undocumented Lives (2008)

Edited by Peter Orner

ISBN 978-1-934781-16-6

En Las Sombras De Estados Unidos (2009) (The Spanish Language edition of Underground America.)

Edited by Peter Orner and Sandra Hernandez

ISBN 978-1-934781-16-6

Out of Exile: The Abducted and Displaced People of Sudan (2008)

Edited by Craig Walzer

ISBN 978-1-934781-28-9

Hope Deferred: Narratives of Zimbabwean Lives (2010)

Edited by Peter Orner and Annie Holmes

ISBN 978-1-934781-94-4

Nowhere to Be Home: Narratives from Survivors of Burma's Military Regime (2010)

Edited by Maggie Lemere and Zoë West

ISBN 978-1-936365-02-9

Patriot Acts: Narratives of Post-9/11 Injustice (2011)

Edited by Alia Malek

ISBN 978-1-936365-38-8

Inside This Place, Not of It: Narratives from Women's Prisons (2011)

Edited by Ayelet Waldman and Robin Levi

ISBN 978-1-936365-50-0

Throwing Stones at the Moon: Narratives from Colombians Displaced by Violence (2012)

Edited by Sibylla Brodzinsky and Max Schoening

ISBN 978-1-936365-91-3

Refugee Hotel (2012)

Edited by Juliet Linderman, Photography by Gabriele Stabile

ISBN 978-1-936365-62-3

High-Rise Stories: Narratives from Chicago Public Housing (2013)

Edited by Audrey Petty

ISBN 978-1-938073-37-3

Invisible Hands: Voices from the Global Economy (2014)

Edited by Corinne Goria

ISBN 978-1-938073-90-8

Reception

Critical reception for the Voice of Witness series has been positive. Publishers Weekly lauded Underground America as "no less than revelatory." The San Francisco Chronicle described Out of Exile as "[e]ssential...an admirable project." Chronicle reviewer John Freeman wrote: "Many of those who do survive (the Sudanese civil war) escape with nothing but their story, something this essential collection of oral testimony records and, in a realistic way, celebrates."

In its review of Surviving Justice, Boston's Weekly Dig praised the series' use of oral history: “The nature of oral history ... allows the exonerees’ stories to be poignant and indignant without the earnestness, false empathy or guilt that would normally poison such subject matter.” The New Orleans Times Picayune called Voices from the Storm a "powerful book" that "draws its strength from the real voices of real New Orleanians."

VOW in the classroom

Voice of Witness has developed core standard-aligned educational resources, including lesson plans for teaching Surviving Justice and Voices in the Storm in high school classrooms, and for instruction on oral history. According to the Voice of Witness web site, the series has been utilized in both college and high school classrooms around the country, including Balboa High School in San Francisco, California, Bentley School in the San Francisco Bay Area, CUNY, Brown University, Valley High School Louisville, KY, and San Francisco State University. Voice of Witness and the Facing History and Ourselves organization have established a partnership to bring the series to additional classrooms.

Founding editors

Dave Eggers Author, Publisher

Lola Vollen, M.D., Visiting Scholar, Institute for International Studies, University of California, Berkeley; Life After Exoneration Program, Executive Director

Board of Directors/Board of Advisors

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Jill Stauffer, Asst. Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Concentration in Peace, Justice and Human Rights, Haverford College

Mimi Lok, Executive Director & Executive Director, Voice of Witness

Rajasvini Bhansali, Executive Director, International Development Exchange

Kristine Leja, Senior Development Director, Habitat for Humanity, Greater San Francisco

Holly Muñoz, Musician and Song Writer, Co-founder, Mid-Continent Oceanographic Institute

FOUNDING BOARD OF ADVISORS

Roger Cohn, Former Editor-in-Chief, Mother Jones

Mark Danner, Author, Professor, Graduate School of Journalism, University of California, Berkeley

Harry Kreisler, Executive Director, Institute for International Studies, University of California, Berkeley

Martha Minow, Dean, Harvard Law School, Harvard University

Samantha Power, Professor, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University

John Prendergast, Co-chair, The Enough Project

Orville Schell, Former Dean, Graduate School of Journalism, University of California, Berkeley

William T. Vollmann, Author

Studs Terkel (Deceased), Author, Oral Historian