Anyone who would seek to defend imprisonment without trial should read and consider this man's experiences. Brian Keenan was a young and idealistic teacher from Ireland when he went out to Beirut to teach English in 1985. net), no owner's name or other inscription, D/j has no tears, nicks, creases or marks and is protected by a clear removable sleeve. Beautiful section on the ‘dreaming man’, the ‘living corpses’ ends with: ‘a man emerges back into life, not because of anything I have said, but the lunacy and the laughter that is at the heart of our life beckon him back and he cannot resist. You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice.

This is a personal piece of writing dealing with his personal experience, and it was written during a time of recovery from the incident itself. There may have been more important books than Brian Keenan's An Evil Cradling, but its thoughtfulness and delicacy of feeling are unforgettable.Absolutely, hauntingly beautiful, filled with lessons in moral strength and integrity that all of us should learn, but few of us ever get the chance to discover about themselves. In 1986, Brian Keenan, an English Literature professor from Belfast, Northern Ireland, decided to take a break from his native city.

He became headline news when he was kidnapped by fundamentalist Shi'ite militiamen and held in the suburbs of Beirut for the next four and a half years. He wants to understand everything, he always needs to know where he stands, where he's going and how best to get there.Unlike some of his more cautious colleagues he didn’t live on the university campus but in a villa nearby. But if you don't shy from dark subjects, and you want to read some of the most descriptive writing you'll probably ever read, I'd recommend picking this up. Whether this was intentional, a desire to avoid shying away from the less pleasant parts of his personality, or whether he just wrote so honestly that the good and the bad revealed themselves in equal balance, I don't know. Made my son read this when he was in his teens as I thought it was the sort of book to help develop a wider understanding of different cultures, viewpoints and most of all humanity. Invariably, people talk about human spirit in assessing this book - I’d like to think that, that it is within any of us such survival, humour, kindness - but strongly suspect it’s HIM, or THEM- that love, fortitude, chemistry- it was them.