The Desert and the Sea - 977 Days Captive on the Somali Pirate Coast (2018)

Michael Scott Moore, a journalist and the author of Sweetness and Blood, incorporates personal narrative and rigorous investigative journalism in this profound and revelatory memoir of his three-year captivity by Somali pirates--a riveting,thoughtful, and emotionally resonant exploration of foreign policy, religious extremism, and the costs of survival.In January 2012, having covered a Somali pirate trial in Hamburg for Spiegel Online International--and funded by a grant from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting--Michael Scott Moore traveled to the Horn of Africa to write about piracy and ways to end it. In a terrible twist of fate, Moore himself was kidnapped and subsequently held captive by Somali pirates. Subjected to conditions that break even the strongest spirits--physical injury, starvation, isolation, terror--Moore's survival is a testament to his indomitable strength of mind. In September 2014, after 977 days, he walked free when his...