Strange trade : the story of two women who risked everything in the international drug trade / Asale Angel-Ajani.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Angel-Ajani, Asale.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Women prisoners--Italy--Rome.

Women prisoners.

Drug traffic--Italy.

Drug traffic.

Rebibbia (Prison : Rome, Italy).

Prisons--Italy.

Prisons.

Italy.

Italy--Rome.

Physical Description:

327 pages : illustrations ; 21 cm

Place of Publication:

Berkeley, CA : Seal Press, [2010]

Summary:

Strange Trade tells the compelling stories of Mary, a Liberian drug courier with a college education, and Pauline, a Ugandan wife, mother, and drug cartel boss. A leading expert on women and organized crime, Asale Angel-Ajani spent years interviewing these women in Italy's notorious Rebibbia Prison-and gained unprecedented access into the narcotics trade. Herself the daughter of a drug trafficker, Angel-Ajani brings a wrenching, deeply personal perspective to the account of these women's lives, and offers a nuanced understanding of the global context within which African women are entering the drug trade in ever-increasing numbers. Strange Trade follows Pauline and Mary as they traverse three continents, survive wars, poverty, and shattered families, secure drug shipments, and commit murder. Angel-Ajani paints rich, intimate, and profoundly surprising portraits without glamorizing, sanitizing, or offering judgment. The result is an unvarnished journey into a world that, until now, has remained hidden; and a glimpse into the motives that led these women to risk-and ultimately lose-everything.

Contents:

Prologue : cui bono

American girl, Roman prison

Urbi et orbi

The place to be

Mary and James

A martyr and the murderess

A year like any other

Letters

Death, a fragment

Family sublime

Tempting matrons

Note to self

Speaking in tongues

The branches and the vine

Changes

Drug orphan

Monrovia bound

A business of virtues

All our kin

Meeting Emmanuel

Educating Pauline

Ourselves or nothing

Temporary assignment

Uganda

Singapore

I belong here

Straight is the gate, narrow is the way

Tomorrow the past will come

The oracle

Marooned

Exit Emmanuel

Waiting rituals

Becoming boss

Dust of living

Diagnosis

Salutations from sunny Nigeria

Respect

Metamorphosis

All-African summit

Underneath oblivion

Guarded privacies

So gentle a woman

Out of time

Seasons of sun and rain

A tiny, harmless death

The quality of light

Epilogue : straitjackets.

ISBN:

9781580053136

1580053130

OCLC:

555629482