“If you read Michael Scott Moore’s book, first clear your schedule, because you won’t put it down until you’ve finished it. The Desert and The Sea is an astonishing and harrowing story, told with great humanity, by a writer who ventures where few will ever go.” — Susan Casey, author of Voices in the Ocean: A Journey Into the Wild and Haunting World of Dolphins

“Highly addictive reading material….Michael Scott Moore delivers an amazing true-life thriller, one of the most suspenseful books written in recent years, that tracks across oceans and underworlds, culminating in a very rewarding, deeply profound end.” — Jeffrey Gettleman, Pulitzer Prize winner and author of Love, Africa

“His account of his nearly three years of captivity is a testament to the strength of one man’s indomitable spirit and Moore’s great gifts of observation, his humor, wits, and evident gifts as a storyteller. Thank heavens he lived to tell the story, which everyone should now read and cheer.” — Tom Barbash, author of Stay Up With Me

“Among the virtues of this account is that even when discussing sensational happenings, Moore never overdramatizes. This exceptional memoir will attract many readers.” — Library Journal (starred review)

A harrowing and affecting account of two and a half years of captivity at the hands of Somali pirates. A deftly constructed and tautly told rejoinder to Robert Louis Stevenson’s Kidnapped, sympathetic but also sharp-edged. — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

When a young man who is good and brave, keenly intelligent and observant, with a lively mind and a learned sense of human and historical complexity, is kidnapped by pirates and kept as a hostage for three years in Somalia’s harsh and violent bush, the result is The Desert and the Sea. However much you wish Michael Scott Moore had never had cause to write it, this book could not be more engrossing, harrowing, suspenseful, wrenchingly humane and illuminating. — Francisco Goldman

“Not only the definitive book on Somali pirates, but a remarkable work of literature too.” — Ben Rawlence

With echoes of Catch-22 and Black Hawk Down, author and former hostage Michael Scott Moore masterfully walks a fine line between personal narrative and journalistic distance in this page-turning and novelistic account of 977 days held captive by Somali pirates.

Moore set off for Somalia in January 2012 after reporting on a historic trial of ten Somali pirates in Germany. He went with an open mind and a grant from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. He knew the stories of poor fishermen whose livelihoods were threatened by international fishing vessels; he sympathized with the legacies of colonialism. Near the end of his trip, however, a gang of pirates captured him and demanded a ransom of twenty million dollars. Moore would be stuck in Somalia for more than two and a half years, shifted from camps in the desert bush to barren prison houses, and—for several months—he was held on a hijacked tuna vessel, where he would make friends with a crew of hostage fishermen.

As the only Western journalist to witness everyday life on a ship captured by Somali pirates, Moore recounts his dizzying ordeal as a rich and surprising story of survival. After a daring but desperate attempt to escape, he struggles with murderous fantasies as well as thoughts of suicide. Some of his guards—happy to have an American to taunt—suggest his long captivity is payback for the Battle of Mogadishu, the basis for the book Black Hawk Down, more than two decades before.

In the face of threats to kill him, or sell him to al-Shabaab, Moore maintains his humanity and his sardonic wit. He relates his captivity with calm detachment, brilliantly weaving his own experience as a hostage with the religious and political factors behind Somali piracy. His wide-ranging narrative brings us into the destitute lives of his guards, as well as memories of his father’s self-destruction. The Desert and the Sea falls at the intersection of reportage, memoir, and history, and it will take its place next to titles such as An Evil Cradling and Even Silence Has an End.