Literary Safari

I’ve been reading “Hostage” Jill Carroll’s gripping account of the 82 days she spent in captivity with Iraqi insurgents.

Jill Carroll, a freelance reporter for The Christian Science Monitor, was kidnapped by Sunni Muslim insurgents in Baghdad on Jan. 7, 2006.

Over the next 82 days, she was shuttled blindfolded among at least six safe houses and had closer contact with Sunni insurgents than any American who has lived to tell the tale.

Her chief captor required his journalist hostage to “interview” him for hours at a time. He would expound on the insurgent worldview and the ruling council set up by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Ms. Carroll stared at the floor. She was afraid to meet his gaze, lest he decide that she knew too much about his features.

In her last hours of captivity this man told her: “Forget about the council. You can only say I am a member of a medium group. You can’t talk about the women or the children. You have to say you were in one room the whole time. Everything is forbidden. You must forget it all.”

She couldn’t. This is her story

A “serial memoir”, this narrative juxtaposes the CSM journalist’s first person account of her experiences alongside a contextual narrative by another CSM editor Peter Grier. The latter recounts the struggles and dilemmas of her family, the media, and the US government (and their clashes) in their attempt to release her. Together, it’s a powerful read that I’d highly recommend to anyone interested in war reporting, the role of the media during wartime, and its relationship to the government.

Jill Carroll tells a fascinating story about her kidnappers, steely men with an aversion for the US government who saw her as a pawn for having their requests met. Living in various Iraqi homes, spending time with women and children, she got an inside view of their lives, their struggle, and their complicated world view.

I found it interesting that just before when JC’s accounts started being published in the CSM, the US government released information about four men who were arrested as suspects in her kidnapping. Coincidence?

My interest in Jill’s story also led me to this interesting post on the blog “Right Wing Nut House” … which discusses the role that bloggers played in accusing Jill of being an Iraqi sympathizer following her arrest …

Whatever people’s opinions, one thing I’m repeatedly struck by is Jill’s will to survive and her skillful navigation of her situation. In Part 7 (“False Hopes”), she writes:

Abu Nour (“Ink Eyes”) began coming to see me almost every day. …At the clubhouse, he also appeared eager to have me “interview” him (see story). He seemed to have begun to view me as a messenger – an idea I had been pushing, hoping it would give them a reason to set me free.

My hands always shook when I did these “interviews.” Like all interactions with my captors, they felt like mine fields, or chess games.

We can all learn a great deal about chess, life, and survival from Jill’s story.

In the current issue of Avenue Magazine: (Avenue “chronicles the lives of Manhattan’s affluent and socially powerful.”)

“An exclusive cover story on actress and author Padma Lakshmi, wife of the controversial writer Salman Rushdie and known throughout the world as the first Indian supermodel. Lakshmi was recently chosen as the new host of Bravo’s popular series “Top Chef” beginning this fall.

Also – from Publisher’s Weekly today:

Nikita Lalwani’s first novel THE SQUARE ROOT, about a young British Indian adolescent math prodigy whose parents are grooming her to attend Oxford University at age fourteen, to Jennifer Hershey at Random House, at auction, in a two-book deal, by Jin Auh at The Wylie Agency (US).

Sudipta Bardhan’s SNORING BEAUTY, in which poor mouse keeps trying to sleep, but the snoozing beauty in his tower keeps snoring, until mouse inserts himself into this not so classic tale with humorous and surprising consequences, to Kristen Daly at Harper, in a nice deal, by Laura Rennert at Andrea Brown Literary Agency (World).