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Title details for Captive by Jere Van Dyk - Available

Captive

My Time as a Prisoner of the Taliban

by Jere Van Dyk
Jere Van Dyk
Audiobook
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An American reporter's chilling account of being kidnapped and imprisoned by the Taliban, in the no-man's-land between Afghanistan and Pakistan
Jere Van Dyk was on the wrong side of the border. He and three Afghan guides had crossed into the tribal areas of Pakistan, where no Westerner had ventured for years, hoping to reach the home of a local chieftain by nightfall. But then a dozen armed men in black turbans appeared over the crest of a hill.
Captive is Van Dyk's searing account of his forty-five days in a Taliban prison, and it is gripping and terrifying in the tradition of the best prison literature. The main action takes place in a single room, cut off from the outside world, where Van Dyk feels he can trust nobody—not his jailers, not his guides (who he fears may have betrayed him), and certainly not the charismatic Taliban leader whose fleeting appearances carry the hope of redemption as well as the prospect of immediate, violent death.
Van Dyk went to the tribal areas to investigate the challenges facing America there. His story is of a deeper, more personal challenge, an unforgettable tale of human endurance.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    June 22, 2010

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781427210449
      • File size: 265057 KB
      • Duration: 09:12:12

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      April 19, 2010
      An American journalist exploring the war zone on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border reports unwanted lessons in its perils in this harrowing memoir. Having traveled with the “freedom fighters” in the '80s, Van Dyk thought he had the connections and knowledge to navigate the tribal lands between Pakistan and Afghanistan, but he was captured by a fractious band of Taliban fighters in 2008. Van Dyk (In Afghanistan: An American Odyssey
      ) and his Afghan guides spent 44 days in a dark cell. Well-fed but terrified, he felt a nightmare of helplessness and disorientation. Dependent on a jailer who mixed solicitude with jocular death threats and a ruthless Taliban commander who could free or kill him on a whim, the author performed Muslim prayers in an attempt to appease his captors; wary of murky conspiracies involving his cellmates, he “was afraid of everybody, including the children.” Van Dyk's claustrophobic narrative jettisons journalistic detachment and views his ordeal through the distorting emotions of fear, shame, and self-pity. But in telling his story this way, he brings us viscerally into the mental universe of the Taliban, where paranoia and fanaticism reign, and survival requires currying favor with powerful men. The result is a gripping tale of endurance and a vivid evocation of Afghanistan's grim realities. 1 map.

    • Library Journal

      September 15, 2010

      While researching a book about the borderlands between Afghanistan and Pakistan, American journalist Van Dyk (In Afghanistan) became part of the story: crossing into the tribal areas of Pakistan, he was kidnapped by the Taliban and imprisoned for 45 days. Here, he relays his day-by-day experience, applying to his own story the same objectivity and journalistic principles he has practiced in his news reportage while also making clear his terror and his will to survive. Those liking history and who have followed the war in Afghanistan will find this story a worthwhile footnote to the larger picture. ["A highly original work that casts a bright light on the usually opaque thoughts and motives of the Taliban," read the review of the Time Bks: Holt hc, LJ 6/15/10.--Ed.]--Pam Kingsbury, Univ. of North Alabama, Florence

      Copyright 2010 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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