Azure's parents were murdered about three years ago in Cape Town, South Africa. He's twelve years old, almost thirteen, when we meet him in Thirteen Cents, hustling with other street urchins, doing anything to survive each day. Cape Town has a market for sex with underaged boys so Azure sells sex to the white men who pick him up from the dark streets. Selling his body fetches a paltry sum that he uses to eat, cloth himself, pay for protection on the streets, and any leftovers get put away in savings. It's a rough life out there on Cape Town's dangerous streets. It's crazy.Thirteen Cents is unsettling and very compelling. It's just the right size at 190 pages and I kept wishing I could read it in one sitting without interruptions. The story contains bits of foreign language without any English translations. It didn't affect my reading and I appreciated the absence of translations. Thirteen Cents is bold, dark, and violent. Kudos to the late K. Sello Duiker.
[Image via Amazon]
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