Submergence by J M Ledgard

Submergence

J M Ledgard

A British spy is held hostage by jihads in Somalia in this topical and harrowing story of terrorist activities, including suicide bombers, mock executions, stoning and piracy. The metaphorical hidden depths of the psyche under endurance are also explored literally, in a parallel story of a voyage to the abyss beneath the oceans. Gruelling and deeply thought-provoking, this book is not recommended for anyone with claustrophobic tendencies!

Extract
There is another world in our world, but we have to live in this one. Jellies we are, washed up on the shore.
He knew he had to keep his wits about him. He had resisted the Stockholm syndrome. He was repelled by the Muslim men around him, who chained and beat him, who called him miisteer watir and yet saw him as unclean - monkey, rat, waste - and would not touch him except in violence and gave him drink and food on a plate and cup which were his alone and considered dirty and not to be touched by anyone else, and they would not endow a smile on him. He spat at them when they were knelt in prayer with their backs turned. They were not worth more than spit to him. He spat at them the way he had masturbated in his jail in Kismayo, to invigorate and separate himself from them. It was all the sordid means he had available.
Parallels
  • After Nature by W G Sebald
  • Life and Times of Michael K by J M Coetzee
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Violence
Explicit sexual content