Overview

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.

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9781580053136

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Asale Angel-Ajani earned her MA and her PhD in anthropology from Stanford University. She is the author of numerous articles and is the coeditor of the collection Engaged Observer. Angel-Ajani has traveled from West Africa to South America, witnessing the impact of drug trafficking and civil war on the lives of women. Before turning to writing full-time, she was a professor at New York University and the University of Texas at Austin. She is married and has two young children. This is her first book.

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