WHAT Schapelle Corby calls her living hell in Bali's Kerobokan prison is about to get worse.

Indonesian authorities are set to transfer the 29-year-old Brisbane woman to a prison in the East Java city of Malang, hundreds of kilometres from Kerobokan, where family members and friends visit her regularly, bringing food and other essentials.

"I live in fear that any day I could be plucked from my cell in the dead of night and taken to another prison in a remote part of Indonesia," Corby wrote in her book, My Story, which was published in November.

Prison officials have told the Herald that Corby could be transferred to Malang at any time. She wrote in the book that guards "relish threatening me with being moved from here, as part of their ongoing campaign of mental abuse".

"They'll often say: 'White monkey, we move you tonight.' "

Papers authorising the transfer were sent weeks ago from Jakarta authorities to the warden of Kerobokan, Ilham Djaya, who says the transfer must go ahead because the prison is overcrowded.

It is certain to go ahead, despite objections from Corby's lawyers, because Kerobokan is not a designated women's prison.

Corby's Indonesian lawyer, Erwin Siregar, has written to the authorities asking that if Corby must be transferred, she be sent to another prison on Bali where she would be near family members and the Australian consulate.

Mr Siregar also said Corby should not be transferred while waiting to hear the outcome of a judicial review of her conviction for possessing 4.1 kilograms of cannabis, which was found in her boogie-board bag at Bali airport in October 2004.

The outcome of the review before Indonesia's highest court is expected to be known soon.

Mr Siregar has not received a reply to his letter.

Life in Kerobokan is harsh; the prison provides inedible food and few other living essentials.

But prisoners with access to money, like Corby, can receive the supplies they want, even mobile telephones and televisions.

In her book Corby wrote that guards regularly transferred prisoners at night, without alerting families or consulates.

She said her sister Mercedes, who lives in Bali with her Indonesian husband and two children, "might just come in one day to find her little sister gone".

"It terrifies us both," Corby wrote.