
Six Years a Hostage
The Extraordinary Story of the Longest-Held Al Qaeda Captive in the World
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Narrated by:
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Byron Mondahl
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By:
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Stephen McGown
About this listen
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.
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absolutely amazing
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The narrator is very average (sorry narrator!). I LOVED that it was a South African who was the narrator, since the story is written from the perspective of a South African. However, I was very disappointed that the narrator was struggling with pronunciation of words and names that were not English. I believe he did his best, by his child-like, slow and deliberate pronunciation of Afrikaans and African names in the book, but it did sound like he never really had to pronounce these names before, and they are quite common in South Africa and one should not have trouble pronouncing htem. I also found his pronunciation of some of the Arabic words unsatisfactory - by now we should all know how to pronounce Allahu Akbar correctly, it is not an uncommon phrase, although Arabic is not commonly heard in South Africa. Other than that, I enjoyed to listen to the narrator.
Excellently written biography
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It's a visit to the desert you won't forget.
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couldn't stop listening
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Amazing
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Gripping stuff!
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What an amazing person. I didn’t want this book to end.
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Stephen’s perspective on his experience is so brave and so unexpected.
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