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Brian Keenan
Brian Keenan has worked as a teacher and community arts worker. In 1985, he took up a post at the American University of Beirut where he was abducted and held hostage by Islamic terrorists for five years. Two years after his release he wrote an account of his captivity titled An Evil Cradling, which has since won four national and international awards. He has since written four other books, Between Extremes, Four Quarters of Light, Turlough and I'll Tell Me Ma. Keenan has been a writer in residence at Trinity College in Dublin. He is currently working on a collection of short stories.
Session
Writing from the Brink
Brian Keenan in conversation with Salil Tripathi
Brian Keenan became headline news when he was kidnapped by Shi’ite militiamen in 1985 and held hostage in Beirut for four and a half years. The intensity and horror of that traumatic encounter is recounted in An Evil Cradling. His next book, I’ll Tell Me Ma, is a memoir about growing up in Belfast. In conversation with writer, journalist and human rights activist Salil Tripathi, he speaks of the trauma of incarceration and the will to survive.