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The Fruit Palace
 
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The Fruit Palace (Paperback)

by Charles Nicholl (Author)
4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
RRP: £8.99
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The Fruit Palace + Cocaine Train: Travels in Colombia + Killing Pablo: The Hunt for the Richest, Most Powerful Criminal in History
Price For All Three: £18.91

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Product details

  • Paperback: 334 pages
  • Publisher: Vintage; New edition edition (7 May 1998)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0099274043
  • ISBN-13: 978-0099274049
  • Product Dimensions: 19.8 x 12.4 x 2.2 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 172,198 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in these categories:

    #5 in  Books > Travel & Holiday > Countries & Regions > Central & South America > Colombia
    #81 in  Books > Society, Politics & Philosophy > Social Sciences > Law & Disorder > Issues > Drugs

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Product Description

Sunday Telegraph

A quite extraordinary travel book. It was a wild adventure that came off


Product Description

Charles Nicholl is on a quest for 'The Great Cocaine Story'. The time is the early eighties and the place - Colombia. The Fruit Palace, a dismal whitewashed cafe that legally dispenses tropical fruit juices, has another purpose as the meeting place for a variety of black market activities and the place where Nicholl unwittingly begins his quest. Nicholl relates his story with madcap energy and vividness as he careens from shantytowns and waterfront barrios to steamy jungle villages and slaughterhouses. He survives fever, earthquake, and discovery by a dealer who threatens to 'check his oil' with a knife. And he emerges with a tour de force that is a triumph of intrepid reporting and suspense - this is truly a classic travel book.
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What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?

The Fruit Palace
68% buy the item featured on this page:
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Customer Reviews

3 Reviews
5 star:
 (1)
4 star:
 (1)
3 star:
 (1)
2 star:    (0)
1 star:    (0)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.0 out of 5 stars (3 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
10 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars Glamorising the pre-Pablo Escobar Colombian Cocaine Business, 9 Dec 2000
By A Customer
This book is undoubtedly one of the most entertaining written on the Colombian contribution to the illicit drugs industry, but should be read with some caution. The book was written prior to the ascent of the Medillin and Cali Cartels and this shows clearly in the book. The book gives the distinct impression that the journalist is being funny and supposedly intrepid in his quest for the Great Cocaine Story at the expense of Colombia and the people who have to put up with having the Great Cocaine Story in their back yard and who are the real victims of the supposedly victimless crime of taking drugs. The book is also quite dated - the daring do would have been impossible in the last twenty years, and this does need to be borne in mind reading the book.

I have read this book twice. The first time was over two years ago, and the second was just a couple of weeks ago. In the interim I have moved to live in Colombia and have now lived here for two years and had to put up with the conditions that are used in the typical manner of travel books to prove how entertainingly corrupt the natives are (and by implication, inferior), by people who will be leaving the country in just a couple of weeks.

Despite the above if you treat this book as an entertaining and not particularly true picture of Colombia, ie just as a good read, the book is worthwhile even if it does fall into the usual traps of travel writing. But be warned - Colombia has changed tremendously in the least two decades.

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3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Subtle blend of travelogue and political observations, 8 Dec 2000
The Fruit Palace is unusual in travel book terms as it is written by someone who can actually write in an engaging style.

I have read fewer novels with a better opening - a sting in a bar that sets the tone for the atmosphere in Columbia for a westerner.

Nicholls combines adventurism with a poetic appreciation of the people, their culture and country. His trail has a sense of doom about it - Columbia seems to have a lot of characters pursuing ever diminishing circles of lives. Yet one is left with an overall sense of beauty and the unexpected which only such a level headed observer such as Nicholl could give the reader.

Enough to make you want to go.

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0 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars the fruit palace, 8 May 2005
By mark francis (oxford, oxon United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Fruit Palace (Mass Market Paperback)
This book is a rare thing.There is something of the streetwise combined the well read.It puts you in a space between the world of the conformist and the outlaw.People can only critisize the sincerity of the story but even that only adds to beautiful prose-like seedy imagery in this unreal chaotic reality.It rocks.
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