A World Apart

Kidnapped Reporter and His Wife, a World Apart, Enduring Their Test

David Rohde interviewing Afghans in the Helmand region in 2007. He was held for more than seven months by the Taliban

December 26, 2010 - Reporters go to war to document the human and humanitarian tragedies that otherwise would go largely unnoticed or misunderstood: concealed by the governments that commit them, eclipsed by the battles that perpetuate them, too complex to carry cable-news appeal. Determined to tell stories from extremity, we rely on our research, our guides and our gut assessment of what is safe and what is not. Most of the time we return from assignments in one piece, and on time.

"A Rope and a Prayer: A Kidnapping from Two Sides" is a firsthand account of one war-zone assignment gone devastatingly wrong.

In this book David Rohde, a correspondent for The New York Times, and his wife, Kristen Mulvihill, take turns recounting in meticulous detail his 7 months and 10 days in Taliban captivity in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and her harrowing negotiations for his release. Their intertwined stories reflect two intensely personal consequences of myopic, lopsided international meddling in the brutalized and neglected region that straddles the border between Central and South Asia. {continued}