Letters from Prison: Dafina Buys 'Inside a Thug's Heart'

The book industry learned of it from its trade magazine: Publishers Weekly reported on November 7, 2003, that Karen Thomas, an editor at New York publisher Kensington, had purchased a book about a pen pal relationship of Tupac’s. It was set to appear in Kensington’s Dafina imprint in May of the following year. Literary agent Alexander Smithline of the Harold Ober agency brokered the deal. Rights were sold for hardcover and paperback, for the United Kingdom and foreign markets, as well as for serialization.

A Letter to Prison

Behind the book is Angela Ardis, according to Publishers Weekly at the time a young model and screenwriter. She had written to Tupac in prison in 1995. This led to a correspondence featuring letters, poems, and erotic fantasies that Tupac sent her, which had never been published until then. Ardis visited him a few times in custody and wanted to see him again after his release. That never happened. The book was intended to tell the whole story of the relationship and print Tupac’s own writings alongside it. It was later published under the title Inside a Thug’s Heart.