In front of him lay the prospect of a law-abiding future, and life in a household of ten adults and eight children, none of whom earned a living. Author Jonny Steinberg met Wentzel in prison in 2002. By the time of Wentzel's release, he and Steinberg had spent more than 50 hours discussing his life experiences. The number is an account of their conversations and of Steinberg's journeys to the places and people of Wentzel's past. He had lived a bewilderingly schizophrenic life, wandering to and fro between three worlds: the arcane universe of prison gangs, steeped in a mythology of banditry and retribution, where he was known as JR; the margins of South Africa's criminal economy, where he lived by a string of stolen names and learnt the arts of commercial fraud; and his scattered family, which eked out a living in the coloured ghettos of the Cape Flats. The number visits each of those worlds in turn. It is a tale of modern South Africa's historic events seen through the eyes of the country's most marginal citizens. Surprisingly, perhaps, it is neither a story of passivity nor despair, but of beguiling ingenuity and cool cynicism. Most of all, the title is an account of memory and id
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Visit the Books Trade-In Store for more details. Learn more. |
Book Description
Product details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
More About the Author
Discover books, learn about writers, and more.
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
There are no customer reviews yet on Amazon.co.uk.
5 star
4 star
3 star
2 star
1 star
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
4.0 out of 5 stars
2 reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
More than a tale of true crime
2 Jan 2008
By K. Ackermann
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Paperback
The Number provides compelling insight into the remarkable parallel universe of South African prison gangs, organised around bandit mythic tales a century old and shocking to learn about - particularly because they still operate in the present. But the book succeeds as narrative non-fiction because Steinberg has gone beyond a voyeur's revelation of this secret world, opening up the life of aging gangster Magadien Wentzel with admirable balance and candor, and thereby giving the reader the opportunity to glimpse intimate and often invisible aspects of life as lived and experienced by Cape Town's 'coloured' poor underclass, from the latter decades of the apartheid era through to a decade's worth of democracy in South Africa. These are the people whose stories history books don't tell.
Because of South Africa's unique past, crime, violence, politics, speech and identity are all intertwined in complex and difficult ways. Criminals might be political heroes and political speech could land one in prison, and the boundaries between these various categories are ambiguous and fraught -- even more so for coloured South Africans: neither black nor white and marginalized (or at best, discounted) at many levels in the present as well as the past.
Steinberg tells a story that takes the reader across these boundaries both in and out of prison through the eyes and experience of gangsters (mainly Magadien), and the author's honest wrestling to uphold the principles of objective journalism serve to affirm the humanity of his subject/protagonist, flawed and horrible as he might be.
Because of South Africa's unique past, crime, violence, politics, speech and identity are all intertwined in complex and difficult ways. Criminals might be political heroes and political speech could land one in prison, and the boundaries between these various categories are ambiguous and fraught -- even more so for coloured South Africans: neither black nor white and marginalized (or at best, discounted) at many levels in the present as well as the past.
Steinberg tells a story that takes the reader across these boundaries both in and out of prison through the eyes and experience of gangsters (mainly Magadien), and the author's honest wrestling to uphold the principles of objective journalism serve to affirm the humanity of his subject/protagonist, flawed and horrible as he might be.
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
Well researched and narrated
9 Aug 2005
By monsta69
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Paperback
Growing up in Cape Town the number system followed by gangs in and out of prison forms part of daily life.However, nobody ever told you how it originated and what the meanings were.I found this book to be informative,entertaining and sometimes heart-wrenching.The author has built up a relationship with the character in the book and in this way has learnt what would normally not be seen as the 'white man's business'.This book tells the story of the number and the effects it had on one mans life.It makes for compelling reading and is very hard to put down.
›
Go to Amazon.com to see both reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
- Books > Biography > True Crime
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
