Lost to the World by Shahbaz Taseer

Shahbaz Taseer's memoir of his five-year-long captivity at the hands of
the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan.
In late August 2011, Shahbaz Taseer was dragged from his car at gunpoint
and kidnapped by members of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), a
Taliban-affiliated Uzbek terrorist group. Taseer's father, the governor of
Punjab, Pakistan, had recently been assassinated for speaking in support of a
Christian woman who had been accused of blasphemy and sentenced to
death. Though Taseer himself wasn't involved in politics, he was still a public
figure who represented a more tolerant, internationally connected Pakistan
that the IMU condemned. What followed his kidnapping was nearly five years
of torture and constant peril as Taseer was held captive by the IMU in the
ungoverned reaches of Pakistan and Afghanistan, his fate subject to the
unpredictable whims and machinations of terrorists. Lost to the World is his
memoir of that time - a story of extraordinary sorrow but also of empathy and
faith.
While deeply harrowing, this tale is also about resilience. Taseer countered his
captors' narrative of a holy war by immersing himself in the Quran in search of
hope and a means to see his own humanity under even the most inhumane
conditions, and ultimately to find a way back to his family.

Shahbaz Taseeris a Pakistani businessman and the son of the late governor
of Punjab, Pakistan. Taseer was held in captivity for almost five years and was
recovered from Kuchlak, Balochistan, on March 8, 2016. His kidnapping was
referred to by The Guardian as one of the highest-profile kidnappings in
Pakistan.

Picador
On Sale: Nov 14/23
5.38 x 8.25 • 304 pages
8 Pages of Black-and-White Photographs
9781250872234 • $25.00 • pb
Political Science / Political Freedom & Security /
Terrorism