The Open Cage: The Ordeal of the Irian Jaya Hostages - Hardcover

Start, Daniel

3.86

28 ratings by Goodreads

9780002558488: The Open Cage: The Ordeal of the Irian Jaya Hostages

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0002558483 ISBN 13: 9780002558488

Publisher: HarperCollins, 1997

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While making a study of the flora and fauna of Irian Jaya in Papua New Guinea, four young British scientists were captured by the primitive tribespeople and held hostage for months. Spirited away within the "sacred" forest, forced to scavenge for food and live, in a way they had never dreamt of, like the native people, they were constantly under threat for their lives. Their eventual release was bittersweet. Before they returned safe to the Western world two of the Indonesian members of their group were hacked to death in front of them by the rebels.

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Review:

‘Dan Start has a rare story to tell. That he has relived his nightmare with such clarity and brought to it such understanding suggests that we have here the emergence of someone special.’
Benedict Allen

‘A mixture of reportage and descriptive writing that has the flavour of a novel. The author has succeeded in portraying his personal nightmare, yet at the same time describing the environment in which he was held hostage with the eye of a natural writer.’
The Times

From the Back Cover:

“There was no fury in these men, no dancing or ceremony as there had been when we had first been kidnapped. Coolly and calmly they were preparing our execution.”

In January 1996 four young British scientists were taken hostage by Papuan tribesmen in the remote mountainous province of Irian Jaya. Swept up into the rebels’ violent political struggle against the Indonesian military, they learned to admire and respect their captors and grew to fear the government forces that would become their only hope for survival.

Daniel Start gives a harrowing personal account of the terrors of jungle captivity as well as the inhospitable beauty of the landscape and the gentle spirituality of the Papuans. 'The Open Cage' is a haunting tale of a forced journey through mountainous forests and makeshift prison camps and of a desperate escape from captors whose peaceful nature has been turned by the forces of war to hatred and murder.

“A mixture of reportage and descriptive writing that has the flavour of a novel. The author has succeeded in portraying his personal nightmare, yet at the same time describing the environment in which he was held hostage with the eye of a natural writer.”
THE TIMES

“Start survived and has written a good book about it.”
SCOTSMAN

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