Six Years A Hostage

THE EXTRAORDINARY STORY OF THE LONGEST-HELD AL QAEDA CAPTIVE IN THE WORLD Stephen McGown was en route from London to South Africa, on a once-in-a-lifetime trip by motorbike, returning home to Johannesburg. He had reached Timbuktu, in Mali, when he was captured, along with a Dutch and a Swedish national, by Al Qaeda Islamist militants. Steve was taken because he held a British passport. He was subsequently held hostage at various camps in the Sahara Desert in the north-west of Africa for nearly six years before eventually being released. Life as Steve had known it changed in that instant that he was taken at gunpoint. He had nothing to bargain with, and everything to lose. For the next six years, he reluctantly engaged in what he came to call the greatest chess game of his life. Thousands of kilometres to the south, in Johannesburg, the shock of Stephen's capture struck the McGown family and his wife, Cath, with whom he had, until recently, been living in London. They immediately began efforts to secure Steve's release, through diplomatic channels and in every other way they felt might have a chance of seeing Stephen freed. But as the months of captivity became years, Steve was compelled to go to extraordinary lengths to survive. Making it back home alive became his sole aim. To accomplish this, he realised that he would have to do everything he could to raise his status in the eyes of his captors. To this end, he taught himself Arabic and French, and also converted to Islam, accepting a new name, Lot. To this day, Steve retains the unenviable record of being the longest-held, surviving prisoner of Al Qaeda. While he was undoubtedly always Al Qaeda's captive, through the long years he spent in intimate proximity to his captors, Steve got to see the Islamist militants as few other Westerners have ever seen them. Six Years a Hostage is not only a remarkable story of mental strength, physical endurance and the resilience of the human spirit, but also, significantly, a unique and nuanced perspective on one of the world's most feared terrorist groups. Steve did not merely survive his terrible ordeal; he emerged from the desert a changed - stronger, more positive - human being. This is Stephen McGown's remarkable story, as told to Tudor Caradoc-Davies, a freelance writer, editor and author based in Cape Town, South Africa. After seven years spent working for glossy magazines such as Men's Health, GQ, Best Life and Women's Health, he now contributes to a range of publications. He also writes for the (South African) Sunday Times, and Red Bulletin.

Ingrid Betancourt's story - her exemplary courage, spirit and resilience - has captured the world's imagination. A politician and presidential candidate celebrated for her determination to combat the corruption and climate of fear endemic in Colombia, in 2002 she was taken hostage by FARC, a terrorist guerrilla organisation. She was held captive in the depths of the jungle for six and a half years, chained day and night for much of that time, constantly on the move and enduring gruelling conditions. She was freed and reunited with her children and relatives in 2008. It is Betancourt's indomitable spirit that drives this important and deeply moving book, telling in her own words the extraordinary drama of her capture and eventual rescue, and describes her fight to survive, mentally and physically. As she confronts the horror of what she went through, her story also goes beyond the specifics of her own confinement to offer an intensely intelligent, thoughtful and compassionate reflection on what it means to be human.

"While riding his motorbike through Mali, on his way home from London to Johannesburg, Steve McGown was taken captive in Timbuktu by Al Qaeda. Life as he knew it, changed in that instant. With nothing to bargain with and with everything to lose, for the next six years Steve became reluctantly engaged in what he refers to as, “the greatest chess game of my life." Thousands of kilometres away in Johannesburg, the shock of his kidnapping hit his wife Cath and the rest of the McGown family. Working every option they could find, from established diplomatic protocols to the murky back channels of the kidnap game, they set to work on trying to free Steve. As the months turned into years, Steve had to go to extraordinary lengths to survive both his prison and captors. His sole focus was to make it back home to his wife and family, so to raise his status among Al Qaeda. Steve taught himself French and Arabic. Six Years With Al Qaeda is not just an incredible story of mental strength, physical endurance and the resilience of the human spirit, but also a unique, nuanced perspective on one of the world’s most feared terrorist organisations. Not only did Steve McGown survive his ordeal, but in many respects he came out of the desert both a changed man and a stronger, more positive human."--

On October 23, 2009, Somali pirates kidnapped Paul and Rachel Chandler from their sailing boat, the Lynn Rival, in the Seychelles, an archipelago in the Indian Ocean. In this remarkable memoir, the Chandlers recount their terrifying ordeal, revealing the inspiring and poignant story behind the dramatic headlines. The book chronicles the aftermath of the attack, and how the Chandlers' captors held them in Somalia for more than a year while trying to extort millions of dollars from their middle-class family. It goes on to describe how despite enduring threats, intimidation, solitary confinement, and even whippings, their unshakable belief in each other and their determination to survive sustained them. With its detailed, day-to-day account of the experience of being held captive by pirates, this unique and inspiring story will resonate with travelers the world over.

An account of the aid worker co-author's dramatic January 2012 rescue from kidnappers in Somalia by members of a Navy SEAL Team Six unit offers insight into the effective use of targeted U.S. military missions.

“[A] remarkable story….An honest and harrowing memoir of a life-changing ordeal.” —Arizona Republic The spellbinding New York Times bestseller, Out of Captivity is the amazing true story of Marc Gonsalves, Tom Howes, and Keith Stansell, three American civilian contractors who were held hostage by the FARC rebel group in Colombia for five and a half years. Written with Gary Brozek, this book is an astonishing tale of unbelievable hardship and indomitable will—an “action-packed” (Time magazine) real-life adventure that stands with Alive by Piers Paul Read, Norman Ollestad’s Crazy for the Storm, and other classic true stories of survival.

On a fateful day in February 2002, campaign manager Clara Rojas accompanied longtime friend and presidential hopeful Ingrid Betancourt into an area controlled by the powerful leftist guerrilla group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). Armed with machine guns and grenades, the FARC took them hostage and kept them in the jungle for the next six years. After more than two years of captivity deep in the Colombian jungle, surrounded by jaguars, snakes, and tarantulas, miles from any town or hospital, Clara Rojas prepared to give birth in a muddy tent surrounded by heavily armed guerrillas. Her captors promised that a doctor would be brought to the camp to help her. But when Rojas went into labor and began to suffer complications, the only person on hand was a guerrilla wielding a kitchen knife. The guerrillas drugged Rojas with anesthetic while one of them slit open her abdomen. Her son, Emmanuel, was born by amateur cesarean section in April 2004. His survival was miraculous, but her joy was soon cut short when the FARC took him from her when he was only eight months old. For the next three years, Clara was given no information about him, but her desire to one day see him again kept her alive. In early 2008, Clara was finally liberated and reunited with her son—to whom this book is dedicated.

A rollicking account of the bizarre hostage drama that gave rise to the term "Stockholm syndrome." On the morning of August 23, 1973, a man wearing a wig, makeup, and a pair of sunglasses walked into the main branch of Sveriges Kreditbank, a prominent bank in central Stockholm. He ripped out a submachine gun, fired it into the ceiling, and shouted, "The party starts!" This was the beginning of a six-day hostage crisis—and media circus—that would mesmerize the world, drawing into its grip everyone from Sweden’s most notorious outlaw to the prime minister himself. As policemen and reporters encircled the bank, the crime-in-progress turned into a high-stakes thriller broadcast on live television. Inside the building, meanwhile, complicated emotional relationships developed between captors and captives that would launch a remarkable new concept into the realm of psychology, hostage negotiation, and popular culture. Based on a wealth of previously unpublished sources, including rare film footage and unprecedented access to the main participants, Six Days in August captures the surreal events in their entirety, on an almost minute-by-minute basis. It is a rich human drama that blurs the lines between loyalty and betrayal, obedience and defiance, fear and attraction—and a groundbreaking work of nonfiction that forces us to consider "Stockholm syndrome" in an entirely new light.