4,000 Days

In 1978 Warren Fellows was convicted of heroin trafficking between Thailand and Australia, and sentenced to life imprisonment in the notorious Bang Kwang prison—better known as the Bangkok Hilton. It was the beginning of 12 years of hell in a place where sewer rats and cockroaches are the only nutritious food, where prison guards laugh as they deliver pulverizing blows and where the worst punishment is the khun deo—solitary confinement, Thai style.

This is not Warren Fellows' plea for forgiveness nor his denial of guilt, but a story of endurance and survival and the abuse of human rights during the decade of a life wasted in leg irons. It is an essential read: heartbreaking, fascinating, and impossible to put down.