Angel with Burnt Wings (Jensen) - Discussion Questions

Discussion Questions
1. Talk about some of the keywords depicting the theme/subject of the book.

Prison book, child abuse, molestation, rape, prostitution, homosexuality, lost innocence, forgiveness, heaven and hell, rehabilitation in prison, parent-child relationships, juvenile crime and punishment, women in prison.

2. What inspired the author to write the book?

It is a story based on real life happenings. It was related to the author by Alice's mother. The author saw the potential in this gripping story to bring forth lessons to the world from the teenager's obscured life and the real life consequences of a self, broken down in scattered pieces and the will to stand up and start a renewed life through the amazing grace and forgiveness she received from God. With rebirth she acquired spiritual freedom. Alice, with the angelic face, was a straight-A student and she offered almost three decades of happenings in her life, written in an exceptional manner in her diaries and letters to her mother which formed the basic recordings of her reality,  crushing down on her young soul that was caught up in a black hole of hell on earth.

3. What is the overall theme, central topic or concept of the book?

It is a story of downfall of a girl of 19. She lost her innocence and had to pick-up the pieces scattered everywhere. In prison after crime, she spent many years to reconstruct her life. The story parallels perfectly with the fairy tale of Alice in Wonderland. The analogies from Wonderland are very real and true to Prisonland. The analogy of coming closer to God is the ultimate exciting climax of the story. Alice's downfall was the catalyst that lead her to her greatest victory, namely to hold God's hand forever. The reasoning in the book is powerful. The book reveals supreme insight by the author in the matter. The analogies and images the author describes are very real and true to the point.

The paragraph is an exerpt from a review on www.fanstory.com. Talk about your experience reading The Angel with Burnt Wings.

"I will be honest, it is the first story I read at Fanstory and I am so impressed from beginning to end. I just wanted to read every single word. So powerful. It is a mixed story; a beautiful one" (T. Bach).

4. Where does the story in the book take place?

The story plays off in the black hole of sexual abuse, prostitution, crime and punishment in Prisonland. Prisonland can be visualized as a grotto of vice and punishment. The real life events happened in South Africa, but the names of places and people have been changed to protect their identity.

5. Who are the main characters and why are they important in the story

The main player is Alice. The out of the ordinary things which happen to Alice in Wonderland  made Wonderland a classic feature in many stories, films, plays and made Alice a beloved character with whom we mostly all, can identify with.  The fairy tale, "Alice in Wonderland", by Lewis Carroll, which is public domain, formed an excellent trajectory to explore the in-depth meaning of a master's choice of events that take place in Wonderland. Carroll conveyed insight in the truths of humanity we all can learn from today.

It was a revelation to the author to interpret the curious events that happened to Alice in Wonderland, in a context of  real prison life. Just like Alice in Wonderland, in real life, a person fights to access freedom we are all meant to have by right. The unrestricted means to fly and enter paradise become so real and easy in this powerful story of Alice in prison. You can live beyond the restriction of your physical, mental and spiritual bars when your forgiveness from God enables you to fly as an angel. The scars on Alice's wings are there to show the world that she had suffered deep sorrow,  but was healed. This emphasises the  fact that we need forgiveness and with its power we are enabled to fly free after incarceration and redemption.

6. Why does the author think the book will appeal to readers?

The author interprets freedom with supreme clarity and succintness. For open eyes, freedom has a familiar face. From a place of stark reality, a prison, Alice won her freedom. We though, are all imprisoned in the confines of our mind, even if it represents a guilded cage. Of course there are those of inner cages that have trapped us with fear, guilt and shame. Some of us never get passed that stage and we are stuck withour ghosts. With this book readers will find ways to earn their freedom. It is a promise.

7. Is there a particular passage from the book the author wishes to utilise?

" I had placed myself in an unbarred cage. I was cut off by nothing, yet I could not pass into a clean life. A desperate anger flushed my cheeks from time from time. I wanted to break the chains of all the limitations inside me. I suffered a crucial period of internal war and turmoil under loads of anguish and fear. I broke loose and decended straight into the iron age of my life when I was arrested and started life behind bars, iron bars. This was my final decent.

" My confusion about who I was when Iived in the black hole must have been like Alice's (Alice in Wonderland). I also wondered if anything would ever happen in a natural way again. I had so many selves, had lived so many sizes and played so many roles. Each self had a different role. I became somebody else in hiding the truth. I became "nothing" when I despised myself. I became violent and angry with flaming eyes when I drank the "poison of abuse". But at last, I became peaceful when I lay in God's hands outside the black hole."


8. What makes this book different from other books like it?

This book shows us how a life is broken up to the core and how it can be reconstructed to become whole again. The truths of a classic masterpiece, like Alice in Wonderland, form a trajectory on which the story is based. This amazingly underlines how the new book's Prisonland parallels with Wonderland. In a sense both stories draw from each other. The comparisons, analogies and images in the new book are both very real and to the point. The author also saw in the new book, the chance to reactivate the truths of the magical tale of Wonderland for young and old to a grown-up new audience.
(Questions courtesy of the author.)

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