Waiting to Be Heard : A Memoir
Author(s): Amanda Knox
As seen in the Nextflix documentary Amanda Knox, in March 2015, the Supreme Court of Italy exonerated Amanda Knox, author of the New York Times bestselling memoir Waiting To Be Heard. In an afterward to this newly issued paperback edition, Amanda updates readers on her life since 2011, introduces the individuals who helped her persevere as her case continued through the Italian courts, and shares her plans for helping others who have also been wrongfully convicted.
In November 2007, 20 year-old Amanda Knox had only been studying in Perugia, Italy, for a few weeks when her friend and roommate, British student Meredith Kercher, was murdered. The investigation made headlines around the world, and Amanda's arrest placed her at the center of a media firestorm. After an extremely controversial trial, she was convicted of murder in 2009. She spent four years in an Italian prison until a new court, which appointed independent experts to review the prosecution’s DNA evidence, affirmatively found her innocent in 2011. She returned home to Seattle, Washington.
But just when Amanda thought her legal nightmare had ended, it began all over again. In March 2013, Italy’s highest court annulled the acquittal and sent the case to the lower courts for further proceedings. Even though no new evidence was introduced against her, Amanda was found guilty and sentenced to 28½ years in prison in January, 2014. This decision was overturned by the Italian Supreme Court, which exonerated her of the murder charge.
In Waiting to Be Heard, Amanda speaks about what it was like to find herself imprisoned in a foreign country for a crime she did not commit, and how much she relied on the unwavering support of her family and friends, many of whom made extraordinary sacrifices on her behalf. Waiting to Be Heard is an unflinching, heartfelt coming-of-age narrative like no other—now with a new afterword, in which Amanda describes the heart-stopping final twists in her fight for freedom, and her hopes for the future.
Review(s):
“Meditative.... Evocative.... [Knox has] an ability to convey her emotions with considerable visceral power.”
“[T]he section on her prison years rivets. It’s painful to see the smart, beautiful, incredibly naive exchange student of the first few pages turn hard and brittle as she navigates the labyrinthine Italian prison system.”
“A raw and dramatic account of her lost years.”
ISBN: 9780062217219