Hostage by Guy Delisle
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
What is it they say about good actors? That they would read the telephone book and you would still be inthralled. That is how Guy Delisle is. He could draw someone reading the phone book, and you would be intrhalled.
Hostage is the story, told from the kidnapped person’s point of view, of what it was like, locked away for four months, locked away in a room, by himself, only getting food and toilet, and nothing else. How do you entertain yourself? As Christophe says in the story, at least if he was in jail, he would k now when he is getting out, but he has no way of knowing. He does not speak Russian. He has no idea what they are saying in the next room, or what they are saying to him. (Although at one point they offer him vodka, and he says he does know that word.)
And though it is excruciating, day after day, it is a book I could not put down. Even though I knew that somehow he escapes his captivity, it is grueling to find all that he went through to get there.
Guy has done an excellent job of telling his story.
Go, now, and buy this book. Go, then, and buy all the other books that Guy has written. They are amazing stories of his life traveling both with his wife’s with Doctors Without Borders, as well as his trips working in animation, including a time in North Korea.