The Dawn Prayer (or How to Survive in a Secret Syrian Terrorist Prison)

By: Matthew Schrier

Narrated by: Michael David Axtell

A photographer captured in Syria and imprisoned for seven months recounts his story and how he became the first American ever to escape al-Qaeda.

"What is your name?" asked General Mohammad.

"Matthew," I said. I had stopped saying Matt a while ago because it means "dead" in Arabic.

On New Year's Eve in 2012, Matthew Schrier was headed home from Syria, where he'd been photographing the intense combat of the country's civil war. Just 45 minutes from the safety of the Turkish border, he was taken prisoner by the al-Nusra Front, an organization the world would come to know as the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda.

Over the next seven months he would endure torture and near starvation in six brutal terrorist prisons. He would face a daily struggle just to survive. And, eventually, he would escape. In this gripping, raw, and surprisingly funny memoir, Schrier details the horrifying and frequently surreal experience of being a slight, wisecracking Jewish guy held captive by the world's most violent Islamic extremists. Managing to keep his heritage a secret, Schrier used humor to develop relationships with his captors - and to keep himself sane during the long months of captivity.

The Dawn Prayer (or How to Survive in a Secret Syrian Terrorist Prison) is a tale of patriotism and unimaginable bleakness shot through with light, of despair and friendship, sacrifice and betrayal, in a setting of bombed-out buildings and shifting alliances. It's the story of the first Westerner to escape al-Qaeda - not a battle-hardened soldier, but an ordinary New Yorker who figured out how to set his escape plan in motion from a scene in Jurassic Park. From the prisoners' fiercely competitive hacky-sack games and volleyball tournaments (played using a ball made of shredded orange peels and a shoelace) to his own truly nail-biting breakout, Matthew Schrier's story is unforgettable - and one you won't want to miss.

©2018 Matthew Schrier (P)2018 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

My favorite book

I enjoy audio books and I listen to them weekly. This one stands out as one of my, if not my, all time favorite. Not only was the authors words so personably presented, but the readers voice made it feel like you were there. What a story!

Incredible

I very rarely write reviews but I haven’t listened to a book I was so drawn into for a long time. And the narrator was beyond perfect. I Highly suggest this book to anyone and everyone.

Great Read

He spoke at my graduation from SERE. The guy is the real deal and he is hilarious so I made it a point to read his book. Loved it. A modern story of perseverance and grit. It’s written in a way that mirrors his “New Yorker” humor and swagger which is quite a humorous contrast with the jihadis’.

Excellent!

Masterpiece! Could not stop listening. Frightening story that could potentially save someone else’s life one day.

An Amazing Tapestry

This is my first review here, and I am glad to write it. This book was incredible. The narrator is easily one of the best of the whole site. The emotion, the accents he uses, the natural way he reads the story overall like it was coming out of his own experiences was very touching.

The rich mixture of feelings the reader/listeners go through was masterfully crafted between Matthew Schrier's story and Michael Axtells voice acting. I read and listen to a lot of POW and capture accounts and they're always really interesting but they only really bring you through all the terrible stuff they went through. In The Dawn Prayer, Schriers account has multiple places where humanity bleeds through and really shows both mans inhumanity to man, but it also contains a pretty good amount of humor which is something that is very rare for accounts like this.

One of the best books I've ever gone through.