Blindfold

A Memoir of Capture, Torture, and Enlightenment

De: Theo Padnos

Narrado por: Fajer Al-Kaisi

An award-winning journalist’s extraordinary account of being kidnapped and tortured in Syria by al Qaeda for two years - a revelatory memoir about war, human nature, and endurance that’s “the best of the genre, profound, poetic, and sorrowful” (The Atlantic).

In 2012, American journalist Theo Padnos, fluent in Arabic, Russian, German, and French, traveled to a Turkish border town to write and report on the Syrian civil war. One afternoon in October, while walking through an olive grove, he met three young Syrians - who turned out to be al Qaeda operatives - and they captured him and kept him prisoner for nearly two years. On his first day, in the first of many prisons, Padnos was given a blindfold - a grime-stained scrap of fabric - that was his only possession throughout his horrific ordeal.

Now, Padnos recounts his time in captivity in Syria, where he was frequently tortured at the hands of the al Qaeda affiliate, Jebhat al Nusra. We learn not only about Padnos’s harrowing experience, but we also get a firsthand account of life in a Syrian village, the nature of Islamic prisons, how captors interrogate someone suspected of being CIA, the ways that Islamic fighters shift identities and drift back and forth through the veil of Western civilization, and much more.

No other journalist has lived among terrorists for as long as Theo has - and survived. As a resident of 13 separate prisons in every part of rebel-occupied Syria, Theo witnessed a society adrift amid a steady stream of bombings, executions, torture, prayer, fasting, and exhibitions, all staged by the terrorists. Living within this tide of violence changed not only his personal identity but also profoundly altered his understanding of how to live.

Offering fascinating, unprecedented insight into the state of Syria today, Blindfold is “a triumph of the human spirit” (The New York Times Book Review) - combining the emotional power of a captive’s memoir with a journalist’s account of a culture and a nation in conflict that is as urgent and important as ever.

©2021 Theo Padnos. All rights reserved. (P)2021 Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved.

Matthew Schrier was right about Theo

I bought this book because I wanted to hear “the other side/perspective “ after reading The Dawn Prayer by Matt Schrier. I haven’t even finished the first chapter and I have skipped ahead a dozen times. I did not understand that Matt was dead on right when he said Theo would just talk and drone on for hours about nothing. Welcome to chapter one.
This book should be offered for free. I can’t believe I wasted my money.
The Dawn Prayer by Matt is a very good book. I would recommend it. I know bad things happen….and I have read tons of stories about cults, kidnapping, Jared-the Subway pedophile—but what Matt survived, had the will to survive and actually escape from is astonishing. Having the mere guts to attempt to escape, knowing that if you get caught the torture will be a hundred times worse—says so much about his will to live and escape this torture.
Back to this book, I will be skipping ahead to see what Theo has to say about his time with Matt, the help Matt gave him and why Theo continually threw Matt under the bus to benefit Theo! And I am interested in seeing if Theo will talk about his book that got him in this big mess to start with. I believe it was called Undercover Muslim, but I can’t find it….although not sure I would pay money for it…maybe at goodwill. Good luck getting through this book…..that is, unless it makes a complete turnaround after chapter one.