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EXCERPT: Read Part Of Daniel Holmes’ Kordin Memoir For The First Time

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Pre-orders are rolling in for award-winning Welsh poet Daniel Holmes’ debut book – and some buyers have already broken down the reasons why they want to get their hands on his memoir.

From A Cage, On A Rock, In A Puddle – A Memoir From Malta’s Prison will be a non-fiction recounting of the eight and a half years Holmes spent inside Corradino Correctional Facility.

It will be available at Agenda bookshops – and everyone from Criminology students to justice activists to Maltese lawyers and so many more will be reading the book.

Daniel Holmes’ memoir, an explosive expose’ of prison life in Malta, is available for pre-order now.

Below is an excerpt from the book, in a passage detailing what everyday life in prison is like.

When someone wants attention, they will obviously shout as loud as they can to be heard. In prison, voices are seldom heard and actions become the only way to get attention.

There are peaceful protests and other forms of action, such as refusing food, refusing fall-in and even refusing to speak. Then there are more volatile choices: cell fires, swallowing razor blades, swallowing batteries or other forms of self-harm.

The attempted hangings and suicides, which were too numerous to list, were but a cry for help in times of need, and they were barely heard. In the CCF even those peaceful protests instilled anger in the guards and resulted in inmates suffering backlash – primarily they’d be cut off from the Playmobil job list.

Prisoners in fact often refused to join protests for that reason.

“Oh, I can’t get involved – I’d lose my dolls and my money,” they’d say. Money has become something that mankind hungers more for than food or human rights.

Indeed, some people in poverty will dream of material things or glory, before a cooked meal.

Beyond the preview, here are three testimonials from buyers to give you a better sense as to why you need to get a copy for yourself ASAP.

“I have followed Holmes’ plight since the very beginning, and I think it’s so unfair and cruel the way our justice system has treated him… all over some plants for his personal use! I wanted to show my support and hear what he has to say, because to be brutally honest with you, in cases such as this I’d rather listen to the “criminal’s” side of the story than what our useless and corrupt justice system has to say.” – Mark Xuereb 

“Interesting to see the life inside our Malta prison. It’s crappy outside it, let alone inside. Considering what we did to him, it’s only a little we can give back to aid him to have a better future” – James B 

“For starters, I want to see his side of the story and honestly, I feel really bad for him that this once called a gem in the Mediterranean failed him big time. The buying process was very simple so it was great” – Anonymous

The explosive tell-all exposé details nearly a decade’s imprisonment in Malta’s prison, seen through the eyes of a foreign man who came to Malta looking for a peaceful life in Gozo.

Instead, he was thrown into a world he had never seen, rubbing shoulders with violent criminals and exposed to the darker side of the Maltese justice system.

Originally told he’d be given “five life sentences and fined for half a million euros” since prosecutors believed he was a “drug kingpin”, he was sent to prison as a supposed drug traffick
In the time he was inside prison, Malta legalised medical cannabis and decriminalised recreational cannabis – but it made no difference to Holmes’ sentence.

Lovin Malta joined Holmes on his first day out of prison as he was reunited with his family in Wales. Watch it below. 

Are you excited to read a copy of Holmes’ personal memoir?

READ NEXT: From Homelessness To Chess Master: This British Player Is Looking To Spark A Checkered Board Scene In Malta

Johnathan is an award-winning Maltese journalist interested in social justice, politics, minority issues, music and food. Follow him at @supreofficialmt on Instagram, and send him news, food and music stories at [email protected]

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