BRITISH AUTHOR'S TORMENT IN BOLIVIAN PRISON

Two months ago, writer and lecturer Alison Spedding began a 10-year term in
a La Paz jail for possessing marijuana. In her first interview since her
sentence began, Burhan Wazir finds her angry and disoriented.

The centre for Female Incarceration isn't mentioned on any local tourist
map. It's an ugly, greying building thrown up on the outskirts of La Paz,
the Bolivian capital. The former hospital seems an unlikely meeting place
for an interview with a British author, but then Alison Spedding would
probably look and sound at odds with her surroundings anywhere.

Spedding was given a sentence of 10 years on 7 May for possessing 1.6
kilogrammes of marijuana, having already been held for almost a year. She
was also charged with intent to supply, an allegation that was subsequently
dropped for lack of evidence. She is appealing against the sentence, with
little prospect of success.

She arrives in the visitors' room dressed in a jumper and faded jeans, a
muddy shawl slung over both shoulders. Her nails are overgrown and
impregnated with dirt. She shares a cell of three metres by four metres with
three other inmates. Her prison companions currently have their children
staying with them, finishing off their school holidays.

'I don't like children - I never liked them much anyway,' says Spedding.

She has never married and has no children. 'I find them boring; I'm a
radical feminist and I think all women who even live with men, much worse
marry them, are traitors to the cause. I spit on all that.'

She continues to talk about the inmates' offspring, a stream of
consciousness interrupted only by jittery hand movements. 'I used to ignore
children previously, except if they could go to the corner shop for
cigarettes. Here, unfortunately, one is forced to live together with the
darling little brats.'

An author of science fiction novels, Spedding moved to La Paz in 1986. She
holds a Masters in anthropology from Cambridge and a doctorate from the
London School of Economics. At the time of her arrest, she was working as a
lecturer at the University of San Andres in La Paz, supplementing her income
by night as a translator.

In recent years the writing career had stalled, she says. 'It's been a
complete failure - I made the mistake of writing across genres. I wrote a
book called Fear and Posing in Cambridge, a satire about unemployment under
Thatcher. My publisher refused to publish it.'

A few other prison inmates walk past, stopping to glance at the British
author giving an interview. Spedding makes little or no eye contact with any
of them, preferring to shout out a catalogue of grievances against the other
prisoners.

She has little time for her new companions. 'I hate them all, and I ignore
them,' she says.

'If you've never been in prison, you'd probably imagine people here to be
interesting. Well, they ain't, you know. They're just ordinary people - what
have they done, apart from getting married and having kids?

'They're stupid and ignorant,' she continues. 'In fact, what I find so
annoying about them is their very ordinariness.' She pauses, cocking her
head to one side: 'Y'know, they've just sold out. They're married with
children - it's just such an objectionably ordinary thing to do.'

The hand movements take on a greater violence - her head swings from side to
side, her eyes wide open in disbelief. Spedding might be understandably
embittered by the harshness of her sentence, but she gives little indication
of any resentment. Her fellow companions in prison are of greater immediate
concern.

'They just really annoy me,' she screams. A guard scurries into the room,
fearing trouble. He gives Spedding a quick look and wanders off - 'that
eccentric woman is always screaming about something', he laughs later.

'We've had a few arguments,' Spedding says of her fellow prisoners. 'They
really do piss me off - all they ever do is lie about their criminal lives.
They all pretend they were huge drug dealers, but I know they're lying.
They're just ordinary people, amazingly boring to listen to.'

Locals describe the Centre for Female Incarceration as a 'girls' boarding
school with metal bars'. The visitors' area opens up at one end to reveal a
tiny volleyball court. Space seems a precious commodity in the cramped grounds.

Spedding says she spends most of her time in her cell, reading local
newspapers and books. One charge against her was dropped during her trial -
subversion. When her flat was raided, the police discovered several texts by
Karl Marx. 'They're so incompetent,' she says. 'I didn't even begin to
explain to the police who Karl Marx was - they're obviously too stupid to
understand.

'They're quite dumb, this lot. Everything is very heavy-handed and
orchestrated with no subtlety. They don't seem to have a clue.'

She stands up and wanders off to another part of the building. A hysterical
English wailing interrupts my exit - Spedding has found another victim of
her unquenchable ire.

'There she goes again,' mutters a guard at the exit. 'Always shouting.
They'll never let her out if she keeps this up.'