The book is a memoir of Amanda Lindhout who was held hostage for ransom in Somalia for one and half years, starting 23rd Aug 2008.
During this period a lot went on. Amanda was renamed Amina, moved to multiple houses within Somalia, tortured, raped, beaten, starved, abused, kept in dark house for months with no sunlight at all, converted to Islam as she realised this will keep her alive for a longer duration among the abductors (Somalia is predominately a muslim country), read the Quran like a hundred times and much much more.
Amanda is a Canadian and loves travelling. Before getting kidnapped she had almost touched 50 counties where she has been to. She started her carrier as a waitress and saved all the tip money to roam around the world. Later she tried her hands on photography and that how she got few journalism projects. She went to Somalia for the same reasons and got caught.
She had a love hate relationship with Nigel Brennen (an Australian photo journalist) whom she had met in one of her travels and been on and off in this relationship, before her kidnapping she had asked him to join her in Somalia as she was going there for a couple of weeks for work. To her surprise Nigel agreed.
Both Amanda and Nigel were adducted on 23rd Aug 2008 and released together after 460 days of captivity.
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| Canadian journalist Amanda Lindhout and Australian photojournalist Nigel Brennan, seated together at a hotel in Mogadishu, Somalia following their release. Source: AP |
Nigel was already married when he started the relationship with Amanda and later when he came to Somalia he was divorced but had a girlfriend. Later Nigel and his family wrote a book about this kidnapping and the book was not really appreciated as it talked a lot about every minute details and most of the times his sister spoke. Their tone and description of Amanda also got a negative review as people who have read Amanda’s book would know who was really acting smart.
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| Going by the reviews, I do NOT recommend you read this book. |
One time both of them even tried escaping, for which they made enough planning, meticulously. Sadly they got caught!! They even ran to a mosque to save themselves from the abductors but that did not help much. They were dragged back and beaten. And beaten a lot.
The story telling of the book is excellent. Its a page turner and like the movie ARGO (my review here) I was siting on the edge of my sofa for this ordeal to end and end positively.
There is already a movie in the making on this part of Amanda’s life. Now go read the book.