Jere Van Dyk was on the wrong side of the border. He and three Afghan guides had crossed into the tribal areas of Pakistan, where no Westerner had ventured for years, hoping to reach the home of a local chieftain by nightfall. But then a dozen armed men in black turbans appeared over the crest of a hill. 
Captive is Van Dyk's searing account of his forty-five days in a Taliban prison, and it is gripping and terrifying in the tradition of the best prison literature. The main action takes place in a single room, cut off from the outside world, where Van Dyk feels he can trust nobody―not his jailers, not his guides (who he fears may have betrayed him), and certainly not the charismatic Taliban leader whose fleeting appearances carry the hope of redemption as well as the prospect of immediate, violent death. 
Van Dyk went to the tribal areas to investigate the challenges facing America there. His story is of a deeper, more personal challenge, an unforgettable tale of human endurance.

Captive: My Time as a Prisoner of the Taliban

Biographies & Memoirs

Van Dyk, Jere

Leaders & Notable People

St. Martin's: Griffin

In Afghanistan is the story of a young man, searching for adventure and self-discovery in war-torn Afghanistan during the time of the Soviet invasion. It is also a portrait of an exotic land and people desperately struggling for survival during that war, as they are today. In 1981, with a letter and some financial backing from The New York Times, Van Dyk, bearded and dressed as an Afghan, sneaked into Afghanistan , then off-limits to foreigners, and lived in the ruggedly-beautiful mountains and desert of this country with the Mujahideen, the men then fighting the Soviet Union. My spine tingled like a boys. I felt the sensation of adventure.The Turbans of ten laughing young men, armed to the teeth, flapped in the wind I would not have traded this moment for all the money in the world. It was suicidal, magnificent, and I knew wed be all right. But it was close. He lived through Soviet ground and helicopter attacks, saw death and suffering, but also laughter. He had much to learn about Islam, tribal traditions and the holy war the guerrillas were waging. He was accused of being a Soviet spy, but ultimately won the trust of his Afghan guides. He saw a strong, courageous, often frightened people fighting to protect the only thing they knew--their homes, their families, their way of life. The author, a former runner, a fledgling politician and writer, who grew up in a fundamentalist Christian family in a small town in the Northwest, also went looking for something deep among these men who shouted God is Great and went into battle against the Red Army. His story is about the people he met and his journey.

In Afghanistan: An American odyssey

History

Asia

Coward-McCann, Inc.

An American reporter's chilling account of being kidnapped and imprisoned by the Taliban, in the no-man's-land between Afghanistan and Pakistan
Jere Van Dyk was on the wrong side of the border. He and three Afghan guides had crossed into the tribal areas of Pakistan, where no Westerner had ventured for years, hoping to reach the home of a local chieftain by nightfall. But then a dozen armed men in black turbans appeared over the crest of a hill. 
Captive is Van Dyk's searing account of his forty-five days in a Taliban prison, and it is gripping and terrifying in the tradition of the best prison literature. The main action takes place in a single room, cut off from the outside world, where Van Dyk feels he can trust nobody—not his jailers, not his guides (who he fears may have betrayed him), and certainly not the charismatic Taliban leader whose fleeting appearances carry the hope of redemption as well as the prospect of immediate, violent death. 
Van Dyk went to the tribal areas to investigate the challenges facing America there. His story is of a deeper, more personal challenge, an unforgettable tale of human endurance.

Captive

Memoirs

Henry_Holt

MacMillan Audio

In 2008, American journalist Jere Van Dyk was kidnapped and held for forty-five days. At the time, he had no idea who his kidnappers were. They demanded a ransom and the release of three of their comrades from Guantanamo, yet they hinted at their ties to Pakistan and to the Haqqani network, a uniquely powerful group that now holds the balance of power in large parts of Afghanistan and the tribal areas of Pakistan. After his release, Van Dyk wrote a book about his capture and what it took to survive in this most hostile of circumstances. Yet he never answered the fundamental questions that his kidnapping raised: Why was he taken? Why was he released? And who saved his life?Every kidnapping is a labyrinth in which the certainties of good and bad, light and dark are merged in the quiet dialogues and secret handshakes that accompany a release or a brutal fatality. In The Trade, Jere Van Dyk uses the sinuous path of his own kidnapping to explain the recent rise in the taking of Western hostages across the greater Middle East.

The Trade: My Journey into the Labyrinth of Political Kidnapping

Americas

Tantor Audio

A former hostage in the tribal areas of Pakistan returns to meet his kidnappers and uncover how political kidnappings and ransomings take place in the shadows of the world's most lawless territories. In 2014, Jere Van Dyk traveled to Afghanistan to try to discover the motives behind a kidnapping that had occurred six years earlier--his own. He was haunted by questions about why he was taken and why he was released, and troubled by the refusal of his friends, employer, and government employees to offer him a full account of what they knew. An experienced investigative reporter, he began a quest to interrogate the accuracy of everything he was told, including from the people he trusted most. In pursuing his kidnappers, and the stories of the intermediaries and money men, Van Dyk uncovered not just the story of his own abduction but the operation of what he calls the Trade: the business of kidnapping. Operating according to its own shadowy rules, the Trade has become a murky form of negotiation between criminal groups, corporations, families, and governments who have no formal lines of communication. Van Dyk's journey took him from up near the Tribal Areas of Pakistan, to the tea shops of Kabul, to the Obama White House, and revealed evidence of lucrative transactions and rival bandit groups working under the direction of intelligence services. In its course, he met the families of many Americans who were or are still kidnapped, bargaining chips at the mercy of violent and pitiless extremists who thrive in the world's most lawless spaces.

PublicAffairs

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Van Dyk, Jere. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Van Dyk, Jere

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Van Dyk, Jere. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Captive: My Time as a Prisoner of the Taliban

In Afghanistan: An American odyssey

Captive

Captive: My Time as a Prisoner of the Taliban

The Trade: My Journey into the Labyrinth of Political Kidnapping

The Trade: My Journey into the Labyrinth of Political Kidnapping