Description
On 9 June 2003, a 43-year-old coloured man named Magadien Wentzel walked out of Pollsmoor Prison in Cape Town. Behind him lay a lifelong career in the 28s, South Africa’s oldest and most reviled prison gang, for decades rumoured to have specialised in rape and robbery. … Google Books Oe man search for identity in the Cape underworld and prison gangs.
he Number is based on 50 hours of interviews with the 43 year old member of the 28’s gang Magadien Wentzel, one of the inhabitants of Pollsmoor Prison in Cape Town. It details his life story, from growing up in the ghettos of Cape Town, through incarceration and his struggles to re-adapt to life outside prison. [4][5][6]
In a review for Kronos, Andrew M. Jefferson stated that the book can be read two ways; as “a succinct commentary on the racially and socially warped world of Cape Town. As such, it is a book about marginalization and coping in Cape Town where violence, stigmatization and incarceration are everyday realities for coloured men. And it can be read as a prison ethnography of which there are precious few in a non-western context.
Paperback. Condition: Very Good. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged.
Reviews
There are no reviews yet.