Short description
Acid Alex is the autobiography of Al Lovejoy, a South African and self-confessed former organised crime boss.
Long description
"A book which is about to turn South African literature on its head … It will do for South African culture what Trainspotting did for modern Scottish consciousness … Boy, what a literary turn-on. God, what a trip."
- Koos Kombuis, from the foreword.
Al Lovejoy was an international drug smuggler. His story is a roller-coaster journey from orphanage to reformatory, from Pretoria Central Prison when Vyfster was being filmed, to Angola at war, to Stellenbosch at the beginning of the Voelvry movement. Moving deeper into the world of drug dealing, we follow Al as he smuggles cannabis into Europe and Ecstasy back to Africa, until his arrest in Belgium, where he faced life imprisonment.
It is a story of child abuse, brutal institutions and wild rebellion, veering between religious hysteria and narcotic intoxication, taking us deep into the violent underworld of Cape Town gangs and international organised crime, behind the cold bars of prison – and out the other side.