Amanda Knox, the young American convicted of the sex-murder of a British student in Italy, has spoken of her wish for motherhood and a writing career, according to comments published from a new book.
Ms Knox, 23, is quoted in the book as saying that she longs to live a normal life and the book contains two nostalgia-filled poems that refer to returning home and escaping from a grim reality into a world of dreams and memories.
She says she has been given 200 books and access to a computer in prison.
She also says that the chaplain in her prison in Perugia has told her she could become a nun because of the sincerity with which she reads her prayers, even though she admits she is not religious and has not been baptised.
“I miss my family. I have friends who are like brothers and sisters to me. I want to live,” she is quoted as saying in the Italian-language book entitled Take Me With You: Talks with Amanda Knox in Prison out yesterday.
“I would like to marry later on and I have to find the right person. But one thing I have always wanted is to adopt a child,” she says in another passage.
Extracts from the book were published in Italian by the ANSA news agency.The book is by Italian lawmaker Rocco Girlanda, president of the Italy-USA Foundation, who has taken a personal interest in the case and has visited Ms Knox.
“I think it’s completely inappropriate... I don’t think visiting this girl in prison merits a book,” said Francesco Maresca, the lawyer for the family of Ms Knox’s victim, 21-year-old Meredith Kercher.
Mr Maresca also said Ms Kercher’s family was annoyed by a film that is being made about the case in which US actress Hayden Panettiere will play Ms Knox.
“It’s too early to see this story in film,” Mr Maresca said.
The film, The Amanda Knox Story, is due to be screened in the US next year.
In the book about Ms Knox, ANSA reported, she is not quoted making any explicit references to her case, which is due to go to an appeal hearing on November 24.
Ms Knox also faces a hearing on November 8 on a charge of slander for alleging that she was beaten by police during her interrogation after the murder.
“She is very worried,” said Ms Knox’s lawyer Luciano Ghirga, declining however to comment on the book which he said he has not seen.
“She is not at her best. She is very worried” ahead of the appeal, he added.In one passage Ms Knox says: “I know I have not always been understandable and that I was guided for too long by stubborn ingenuity which created confusion.”
Ms Knox was sentenced in December 2009 to 26 years in prison for the murder of Ms Kercher in a drug-fuelled sex game that turned violent.
The Seattle native has repeatedly protested her innocence.
Ms Kercher was found on November 2, 2007, semi-nude in a pool of blood with stab wounds to the neck in her room in the cottage she shared with Ms Knox.
Ms Knox’s then Italian boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito and a man from Ivory Coast, Rudy Guede, were also convicted of the murder.
In the book, Ms Knox refers to violence against women in universities, saying: “Sometimes girls remain very psychologically damaged by it.
“I’ve spoken to girls who unfortunately have had these experiences. They feel a sense of guilt and at the same time hatred towards everyone.”
But Massimo Montebove, a leader of Italy’s Sap police trade union, said: “Amanda Knox is not as ingenuous as she would have us think.
“She will have her freedom after due judicial process if... she manages to demonstrate her innocence,” he said, ANSA reported.