Lost to the World, Shahbaz Taseer
Lost to the World, Shahbaz Taseer
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Lost to the World
A Memoir of Faith, Family, and Five Years in Terrorist Captivity

Author: Shahbaz Taseer

Narrator: Adam Karim

Unabridged: 8 hr 21 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 11/15/2022


Synopsis

Shahbaz Taseer’s memoir of his five-year-long captivity at the hands of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan.

In late August 2011, Shahbaz Taseer was driving to his office in Lahore when he was dragged from his car at gunpoint and kidnapped by members of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), a Taliban-affiliated Uzbek terrorist group. Shahbaz’s father, the late Pakistani governor, had recently been assassinated. His crime: speaking in support of a Christian woman who had been accused of blasphemy and sentenced to death. Though Taseer himself wasn’t much interested in politics, he was somewhat of a public figure, and he represented a more tolerant, internationally connected Pakistan that the IMU despised.

What followed was nearly five years of torture and harrowing danger while Taseer was held captive, his fate determined by the infighting of the IMU, the Taliban, and ISIS. Lost to the World is his memoir of that time—a story of extraordinary sorrow but also of goodness and faith. While deeply dramatic, this tale is also comedic; for Taseer, humor, as much as the Koran, provided a light by which to see his own humanity, even under the most inhumane conditions, and to find a way back to his family.

In a time when Western leaders use fear-mongering rhetoric to paint all followers of Islam as dangerous fundamentalists, Lost to the World illustrates the chasm between Muslim terrorists and ordinary Muslim citizens, and how terrorist organizations gain strength from the war on terror.

A Macmillan Audio production from Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

About Shahbaz Taseer

Shahbaz Taseer is a Pakistani businessman and the son of the late governor of Punjab, Pakistan. Taseer was held in captivity for almost five years and was recovered from Kuchlak, Balochistan, on March 8, 2016. His kidnapping was referred to by The Guardian as one of the highest-profile kidnappings in Pakistan.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Krutika

I have always loved reading memoirs and Shahbaz Taseer’s Lost to the World is both nightmarish and courageous. After being held captive by a ruthless terrorist group called Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, Taseer is finally released in an almost a ‘too true to be good’ manner. Taseer is well known as......more

Writing a review for this book would be an injustice and I won't have it. This book is by far the best book I've ever read and I've read hundreds of them. Indescribable just- and to think that it is a non-fiction, a memoir!!! At times I couldn't believe the situations to be real that he was in. So m......more

Not the best written book but wow, what a story! It's hard to imagine that this is a real person who has shared his experiences. I was in tears by the end.......more

Even though Taseer (or his ghost writer) tells the story of those harrowing 5 years (starting from his father's shocking murder to his miracle release from captivity) in sparse, tightly controlled sentences, no one can quite understand the depth of fear, confusion and loss that this family and this......more


Quotes

"Taseer’s story is both chilling and infused with bravery and wisdom. This testament to the resilience of the human spirit will inspire any reader." —Publishers Weekly

“What a book. Lost to the World is a survival narrative unlike any other. In this unforgettable page-turner, true-life miracles and high-tech death fall from the sky. Our hero endures medieval torments, witnesses acts of sudden kindness, and escapes one surreal prison and battlefield after another. Above all, Shahbaz Taseer’s account of his captivity and liberation is, like Papillon and Unbroken, a deeply moving testament to the triumph of the human spirit.” —Héctor Tobar, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Deep Down Dark

“Shahbaz Taseer draws you into his endless imprisonment. I was afraid of turning the page, afraid of what lay ahead. I found myself oscillating between tears and laughter. This memoir is a complete tour de force of emotions. I am convinced that it was Taseer’s compassion and resilience that kept him alive and that he was guided by the faith he had in his family and the courage instilled in him by his father.”
—Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, Academy Award–winning filmmaker and journalist