Winfrey and her book club, my story will be introduced to a national audience. “My greatest hope at that time was that a few young people would read my story and learn from my mistakes. I wrote That Bird Has My Wings while in solitary confinement, isolated and alone,” he says. “I turned 60 this year, having entered San Quentin at the age 19. Masters had this to say about the selection of his book for Oprah’s Book Club:
HarperOne has reissued the book, which contains a foreword by spiritual teacher Pema Chödrön, who has long championed Masters’s cause. Oprah read the book shortly after it was first published by HarperOne, in 2009, and it left a strong impression: “His story, of a young boy victimized by addiction, poverty, violence, the foster care system, and later the justice system, profoundly touched me then, and still does today,” said Oprah. Masters has been incarcerated in California’s San Quentin State Prison for the past 41 years.
