Beyond the Wall

A provocative drawing of Venezuela's Lady Justice replaced Abe Lincoln's words on the lawyer's room of Reten La Planta, a prison in Caracas. The time was 1995, Gail Kenna's last day in country after four years there. Her non-fiction work, initially printed through a 2000 Puffin Foundation grant, explores a country that satirizes greed and depravity, and mocks unequal administration of the law. In prologue and epilogue, and fourteen interrelated stories, Kenna unveils corruption that helps to explain Venezuela's tragic economic and political morass today. In the foreword to this reissued book, Kenna asks how Lady Justice should be depicted in the USA today, and if Venezuelan corruption has something to teach us.