Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotes by Brian Keenan (Irish-British Writer)

Brian Keenan (b.1950) is a Northern Irish writer whose work includes the book An Evil Cradling, an account of the four and a half years he spent as a hostage in Beirut, Lebanon 1986–90.

Born into a working-class family in East Belfast, Northern Ireland, Keenan worked as a community worker while attending the University of Ulster in Coleraine and Magee College. He taught English at the American University of Beirut for four months before Islamic Jihad kidnapped him. After two months in isolation, he was moved to a cell shared with the British journalist John McCarthy. Keenan was released after four and a half years because of the Irish government’s diplomatic efforts.

Keenan wrote An Evil Cradling (1991,) a bestselling autobiographical book about his time as a hostage, his companionship with McCarthy, and the brutality they experienced. It was the 1991 winner of the Irish Times Literature Prize for Non-fiction and the Christopher Ewart-Biggs Memorial Prize.

Keenan’s other works include Turlough (1996,) Between Extremes: A Journey Beyond Imagination (2000; with J. McCarthy,) Four-Quarters of Light: An Alaskan Journey (2005,) and I’ll Tell Me Ma ( 2010.)

More: Wikipedia READ: Works by Brian Keenan

Hostage is a crucifying aloneness. It is a silent, screaming slide into the bowels of ultimate despair. Hostage is a man hanging by his fingernails over the edge of chaos, feeling his fingers slowly straightening. Hostage is the humiliating stripping away of every sense and fiber of body and mind and spirit that make us what we are. Hostage is a mutant creation filled with fear, self-loathing, guilt and death-wishing. But he is a man, a rare, unique and beautiful creation of which these things are no part.
Brian Keenan
Topics: Terrorism

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