Gift is fourteen years old when he becomes an inmate of South Africa's Qalakabusha youth reformatory. The casualty of a 'bad upbringing, ' he takes out his anger in predictable ways, veering onto a path of crime that lands him behind bars. It is there, amid the unremitting harshness of prison life, that he has to find in himself the insights that will allow him to emerge from victimhood toward personhood. The Violent Gestures of Life will appeal to all audiences, from young adult to adult. It is a novel about incarceration, written by one who has experienced life as a prison inmate.