Captive: My Time as a Prisoner of the Taliban [Hardcover]

Jere Van Dyk (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

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. (June 22)
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Review

“If you want to read an amazing book, check out Captive, by Jere Van Dyk. . . . What this reporter lived through is, I think, pretty much the most frightening thing a journalist could be subjected to. He wrote a phenomenal book about it that I consumed in about a day. Please read it.”--Sebastian Junger, author of War

“Rich and revealing. . . . Offers a rare and complicated portrait of the Taliban mentality seen through discerning Western eyes.”--The Washington Post

“A vivid portrait of a man under stress and pressure, producing the equivalent of war’s high tension and terror. . . . Some of [Van Dyk’s] passages inevitably will become part of the canon.”--The Boston Globe

“A gripping tale of endurance and a vivid evocation of Afghanistan's grim realities.”--Publishers Weekly

“A harrowing survival story.”--Kirkus Reviews

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Times Books; 1 edition (June 22, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 080508827X
• ISBN-13: 978-0805088274
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #33,390 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

  #28 in	Books > History > Asia > Afghanistan
  #47 in	Books > Biographies & Memoirs > Professionals & Academics > Journalists
  #6 in	Books > History > Asia > Pakistan

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

44 of 47 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Vivid and Powerful Story of Desperate Times, June 22, 2010

By	David C. Isby (Alexandria, VA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Captive: My Time as a Prisoner of the Taliban (Hardcover)

I know Afghanistan and the Pakistani borderlands. I've been there many times over the past 30 years and have just written my fourth book (AFGHANISTAN: GRAVEYARD OF EMPIRES, published by Pegasus) about that area. So I have encountered Jere Van Dyk, whose expertise goes back many decades, and many of the same people, places and hazards that he did. I can vouch for the accuracy and authenticity of what he has written about. This is all the way it actually is out there. I can also attest to the vivid and compelling way in which he has told his story. This is the real high-stakes world. Unlike the embedded reporters with US and NATO forces, there was no one to call for a rescue helicopter or provide back-up. If anything counts as "extreme reporting" it was what Jere Van Dyk was doing.

The old calypso folk song, "The Sloop John B" has great resonance with anyone that has ever travelled through this part of the world, because of its heartfelt chorus "This is the worst trip I've ever been on". We've all thought we were on that trip on one time or other, but Jere Van Dyk, no fooling, found it. He ended up falling into the hands of some very evil guys and had no idea whether they were going to hack his head off with a blunt dinner knife as they did to Daniel Pearl, sell him to Al Qaeda, or use him to resolve generations of political and religious resentment in even more painful ways. That he not only endured but came through to write this book is a story both of endurance and a demonstration of what is at stake in the conflicts in the region.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Absolutely riveting, June 29, 2010

By	Melissa Hempe (Portland, OR USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Captive: My Time as a Prisoner of the Taliban (Hardcover)

I sat down with Jere Van Dyk's newly released book expecting to read a few pages before bed, and find myself writing this review at 2:54 a.m., having stopped only for a Pepsi and some sunflower seeds to snack on.

This is the true story of a journalist/writer pushing the boundaries between safety and death in the border regions between Afghanistan and Pakistan; being betrayed and kidnapped by the Taliban, and held in prolonged captivity.

The writing being as excellent as it is, the book reads so smoothly that it allows instant immersion in story; the Afghani people and landscapes coming to life and the terror and tension of being held by the Taliban enough that I realized I had been holding my breath at times while reading.

This is an amazing study of how the author, being kept in a small room with three other men and visited by different captors, kept psychologically sane in the midst of daily threats of death and hypocritical preaching about the need for him to convert to Islam to be a righteous man. Time and time again his fellow prisoners and his captors claim fanatical loyalty to Islam and yet blatantly disobey many important ethical tenants such as kidnapping, stealing, and deceit. The insights into Islam alone make this a fascinating read.

His own faith having been strictly fundamentalist as a child, he is able to relate to the absolutes and dogma of religion. He is forced to memorize and pray the prayers of Islam daily - indeed his very life depends upon it. He finds himself praying to the God of his younger days; a God he had not spoken to or believed in for many years. But this is not a "Come Back to Jesus" story with clear-cut answers or neat solutions to fall back on. It is a story of maintaining a sense of identity and holding fast against constant pressure to convert which could very well save his life.

After his release, the author had death threats waiting for him on his home answering machine. He still receives death threats from Islamic fundamentalists and the Taliban promised to kill him if he spoke to anyone in Government. He is still uncertain as to which of the men he spent so many days in captivity with were complicit in his betrayal and kidnapping, and so many questions are left unanswered.

One thing is clear: things in Afghanistan are not what we read about in the papers or see on T.V. here in the U.S. They are far more complicated, and as a foremost expert on Afghanistan (as well as being a writer, the author lived with the mujahideen in the early 1980's and is the consultant for CBS News on Afghanistan, Pakistan, and al-Qaeda) Jere Van Dyk is a voice crying in the wilderness of black and white solutions. His clear love of Afghanistan - the people, the landscape, the hospitality of many tribal peoples - shines through his telling of his ordeal almost like a sweet romance that has turned terribly sour.

This is a wonderfully written, can't-put-down page turner worth reading for so many reasons. It offers insight into the country we are currently waging war against; it is full of intrigue and excitement and reads better than most spy novels; it is a psychological study of one man held captive and his survival techniques/relationships, and finally it is an exploration of Islam in the most intimate way.

Highly recommended.

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The harrowing tale of a Taliban captive, June 30, 2010

By	N. B. Kennedy (Hopewell, NJ USA) - See all my reviews (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Captive: My Time as a Prisoner of the Taliban (Hardcover)

Captivity narratives are fascinating in the way a train wreck is fascinating. We don't want to look, but we have to look. We are stunned and horrified at what we see. We desperately want to return to the decisive moment when it all could have been averted. Yet we cannot go back.

Jere Van Dyk wanted to return to the Afghanistan he loved as a young man and the Afghanistan he came to know more deeply when he traveled undercover with the mujahideen in the 1980s, reporting on their armed struggle against the Soviet Union. Given his connections, he thought he could report on the Taliban from the fractious tribal borderlands of Afghanistan and Pakistan, which no journalist had successfully navigated in years.

Renewing old ties and forging new ones, he makes brief forays across the border, but ultimately he is captured. His first look at his cell hints at what might lie ahead: "I was in a small baked-mud room.... I looked behind me to see if there was any blood on the wall. Was this a torture chamber? I saw black marks and wasn't sure. I saw chains on the dirt floor on my right. They were tied to a steel stake." Was Mr. Van Dyk betrayed? He doesn't know for sure. In fact, there isn't much he can know for sure as he endures the degradations of imprisonment. Most chillingly, he isn't sure he will live.

Mr. Van Dyk doesn't pretend to be brave or heroic or otherworldly spiritual. He writes of his fear, his sickness of body and heart, his shame and his grief. He admits to a fascination with his captors and their Islamic rituals, even their way of life. Yet he also feels the pull of his childhood Christian faith. The nuanced way that he experiences psychological torture and physical deprivations makes this a more engrossing narrative than other captivity stories I've read, such as Buried Alive or Kabul 24.

In the end, Mr. Van Dyk didn't get the story he went after, but he found an even more compelling one. His harrowing personal experience probably tells us more about the Taliban than could have been told from a more removed stance. I deeply regret the soul-rending terror he was forced to endure, but I am grateful as a reader that he could craft such a valuable memoir from it.