Marching Powder

Rusty Young was backpacking in South America when he heard about Thomas McFadden, a convicted English drug trafficker who ran tours inside Bolivia's notorious San Pedro prison. Intrigued, the twenty-something Australian law graduate travelled to La Paz and joined one of Thomas's illegal tours. What followed took both men by surprise: they formed a strong and instant friendship and then became partners in an attempt to record Thomas's experiences in the jail.Marching Powder is a shocking, sometimes darkly comic account of the life in San Pedro. In this bizarre prison, inmates are expected to buy their cells from real estate agents. Others run shops and restaurants, and hundreds of women and children live with imprisoned family members. It is a place where corrupt politicians and drug lords live in luxury apartments while the poorest prisoners are subjected to squalor and deprivation. Violence and crime are never far away, and sections of San Pedro that echo with the sound of children by day, house some of Bolivia's busiest cocaine laboratories by night.Yet amid the corruption, brutality and the daily struggle for survival, Marching Powder is also the tale of an unlikely friendship, forged in the oddest of circumstances, between a drug smuggler and a lawyer. It is the story of one of the strangest places on earth, where horror is leavened by humour and where cruelty lives side by side with compassion.

'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.' -- The Daily Mail
'The book is filled with characters ranging from outrageous to inspiring, and Young layers on the texture – sights, sounds, smells – until we feel as though we have visited the place. Travel literature of a very special and captivating kind.' -- Booklist

Rusty Young is a writer, journalist and documentary maker who grew up in Sydney, Australia. He studied Law and Finance at the University of New South Wales. Following the global success of Marching Powder, he settled in Bogotá, Colombia. Adrian Mulraney is a graduate of the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts. Along with being a top voice artist, he has appeared in over 70 theatre shows in four Australian states and has appeared in Stingers, Neighbours, MDA and many other TV shows and feature films. Rusty Young is a writer, journalist and documentary maker who grew up in Sydney, Australia. He studied Law and Finance at the University of New South Wales. Following the global success of Marching Powder, he settled in Bogotá, Colombia.

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