Amanda Lindhout was back in Canmore last week for a pair of book readings from her new memoir A House in the Sky, written with co- author Sara Corbett.
Canmore became Lindhout’s home when she was released from spending 18 months in captivity after being kidnapped in Somalia in 2008.
The support she has seen from the community, including book sales and the two sold-out book talks Oct. 21, have been incredible for the 32-year-old.
“That means the world to me – I’ve been in Canmore for only a couple of years, but it speaks to that sense of community – it is such a special place,” Lindhout said.
Being on the New York Times bestseller list and having A House in the Sky become an instant bestseller in Canada has made the past few months a whirlwind for her.
“But I am really just overwhelmed by the support from Canadian citizens who followed my story when I was abducted and have always wondered about what was really going on and interested in the back story of how I ended up in Somalia to begin with. Now I have delivered that story to people and it has been really heartwarming to read people’s responses and reactions to my story of survival,” Lindhout said.
The memoir is indeed a story of survival and the capacity of the human spirit to overcome what would be unimaginable to the rest of us. While being held for ransom, Lindhout was subjected to beatings and sexually assaulted by the men holding her.
After being released along with photographer Nigel Brennan, Lindhout has been deliberate and careful of the language used to tell her story and the details she shared in the media.
“What was always important to me was that I had the proper space and time to tell my story that was dignified, which is why I never did short interviews about the really horrific things that happened to me before the book came out. Because I have too much self respect for that,” she said.
“What was important in telling the story in my own voice, to me, was maintaining my dignity and not sensationalizing anything while at the same time being really honest with the reader about the deprivation and the abuse I suffered there and I had the control to do that in the span of a book.”
With the book now out, however, she said having people all over the world literally reading about the darkest days of her life has been challenging.
“That’s not actually been easy for me, that was quite a stretch in September – I felt really vulnerable and exposed,” she said. “There was that moment of bated breath of how will the story be received … it is so personal and it has overwhelmingly been received positively … and that is so satisfying for me because that is what I wanted – it is a story of survival and I hoped that it would teach people something about the human spirit’s capacity to survive and that seems to be what people are getting out of the book and I am really happy with that.”
There has also been negative commentary, but she noted it hasn’t been about the book itself, but about her personally.
“People are very opinionated about me and the choice I made to go to Somalia and I get that and I think everybody is entitled to their own opinion and I don’t expect everybody to even want to understand what I was doing there,” she said.
“However, if people do want to understand, what I have endeavoured to do with the book is write it with a lot of self awareness and I will be the first one to raise my hand and say I made mistakes as a young woman and should I have been in Somalia? Was I the most qualified person to be there?
“I wasn’t, but I was there and I can’t undo that and what I have endeavoured to do with my life afterwards is live a meaningful life and a life that is a lot more thoughtful than before this experience.”
While a coveted public speaker and gracing the pages of fashion magazines have been on the agenda for Lindhout this year, she is very much hard at work with her non-profit Global Enrichment Foundation.
The foundation raises money to support programs for women and children in Somalia – a country she still thinks is full of wonderful, beautiful and generous people.
“There is a really beautiful spirit in the people there and it is unfortunate that there is an extremist group that is controlling much of the country,” she said. “I really love and feel proud of the work we have done to support some really incredible and recognized Somali activists, who are really the ones leading change in that country.”
In fact, one of the partners on the ground in Somalia that the Global Enrichment Foundation supports is Dr. Hawa Abdi. A human rights activist and physician, Abdi was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize in 2012 and provides a safe place for women and children through the Dr. Hawa Abdi Foundation and its compound in Somalia.
The camp was the destination Lindhout and Brennan were headed to the day they were kidnapped.
“That day that I was going there, I was thinking maybe I will write something or take a picture of something that will really move people about this camp and now these years later I am in a position to be able to fund most of the infrastructure in her camp,” Lindhout said. “We fund a primary school there which can accommodate over 8,000 students, a women’s resource centre, built wells and bathrooms, hired security guards and we’ve hired nurses and doctors to come in.”
