A gripping, sometimes surreal account of surviving one of the world's craziest and most dangerous prisons.

**San Pedro is Bolivia's most notorious prison. Small-time drug smuggler Thomas McFadden found himself on the inside. Marching Powder is the story of how he navigated this dark world of gangs, drugs and corruption to come out on top./b>Thomas found himself in a bizarre world, the prison reflecting all that is wrong with South American society. Prisoners have to pay an entrance fee and buy their own cells (the alternative is to sleep outside and die of exposure), prisoners' wives and children often live inside too, high quality cocaine is manufactured and sold from the prison.Thomas ended up making a living by giving backpackers tours of the prison - he became a fixture on the backpacking circuit and was named in the Lonely Planet guide to Bolivia. When he was told that for a bribe of $5000 his sentence could be overturned, it was the many backpackers who'd passed through who sent him the money. Written by lawyer Rusty Young, Marching Powder - sometimes shocking, sometimes funny - is a riveting story of survival.

This exotic, cautionary yarn opens the abyss beneath our wealthy world.

Vorwort
A gripping, sometimes surreal account of surviving one of the world's craziest and most dangerous prisons.

Autorentext

Rusty Young

Klappentext

'All the staples of the prison memoir are here: sadistic guards and attempted break-out, the terrors of solitary confinement, the joys of freedom . . . The result is a truly gripping piece of testimony'
Sunday Telegraph

A darkly comic, sometimes shocking account of life in San Pedro, the world's most bizarre prison, through the eyes of one bemused Englishman.

When Thomas McFadden was arrested trying to smuggle five kilos of cocaine out of Bolivia, he was flung into San Pedro prison - the strangest penitentiary system in the world. Thomas was astonished to discover that corrupt politicians and major-league drug smugglers lived in luxury apartments in one wing, while the poorer sections of the prison were too dangerous to enter after dark. Prisoners had to pay for everything: their cells, their food and their clothing, not to mention the many bribes required by the police. To survive in San Pedro you needed an income - and so prisoners turned to the trade they knew best: manufacturing cocaine. Even the prison cat was addicted to crack.

Initially mistaken for a hated American, Thomas survived numerous attempts on his life as he tried to adjust. In Marching Powder he describes his journey from despised gringo to San Pedro's most famous inmate. After trying drug dealing, shopkeeping and becoming a Mormon pastor, he hit upon the idea of giving guided tours of the prison. Thomas became legendary on the South American backpacking circuit - which is how he met young lawyer Rusty Young. Rusty was so impressed by him that he moved into the prison for three months to write his story - discovering that behind the show Thomas put on was a much darker reality, where brutality and death were common currency, and sometimes even the strongest didn't survive.