Book description
MARCHING POWDER is the story of Thomas McFadden, a small-time English
drug smuggler who was arrested in Bolivia and thrown inside the
notorious San Pedro prison. He 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 00 his sentence could be overturned, it was the
many backpackers who'd passed through who sent him the money. Sometimes
shocking, sometimes funny, MARCHING POWDER is an always riveting story
of survival. 'All the staples of the prison memoir are here: sadistic
guards, an attempted break-out, the terrors of solitary confinement, the
joys of freedom . . . The result is a truly gripping piece of testimony'
Sunday Telegraph 'This exotic, cautionary yarn opens the abyss beneath
our wealthy world' Uncut
