# A House in the Sky (2013) by Amanda Lindhout and Sara Corbett: a memoir of captivity in Somalia

> Amanda Lindhout and Sara Corbett's A House in the Sky (2013): the 2008-2009 kidnapping it describes, its reception and the debate around it, and where to read it.

Source page: https://calankii.com/en/books/a-house-in-the-sky-lindhout/
Last checked: 2026-11-12
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## The book

**A House in the Sky** was published by Scribner in New York in 2013. It is the memoir of **Amanda Lindhout**, a Canadian freelance journalist born in 1981, written with the American journalist **Sara Corbett** ([Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amanda_Lindhout)).

## What it covers

- **Early life and travels.** The book begins with Lindhout's childhood in Alberta and her travels as a young adult, before she began working as a freelance journalist in Afghanistan in 2007 and Iraq in 2008 ([Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amanda_Lindhout)).
- **The kidnapping.** On 23 August 2008, two days after arriving in Mogadishu, Lindhout and the Australian photojournalist Nigel Brennan were kidnapped together with their Somali translator and drivers. Their captors were insurgents linked to the armed group Hizbul Islam ([Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amanda_Lindhout)). The group is described on [Hizbul Islam](/en/institutions/hizbul-islam/).
- **Captivity.** The kidnappers demanded a ransom of 2.5 million US dollars in October 2008, later lowered. The Somali translator and drivers were released in January 2009. Lindhout was separated from Brennan, and in the book she describes being abused and tortured. She and Brennan were freed on 25 November 2009, after 460 days, when their families paid a ransom through a private negotiator ([Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amanda_Lindhout)).
- **Faith in captivity.** Lindhout writes that she and Brennan converted to Islam during their captivity in the hope of easing their situation ([Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amanda_Lindhout)).

## How it was received

- The book was a New York Times bestseller, and won the CBC Bookie Award for Best Canadian Nonfiction in 2014 ([Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amanda_Lindhout)).
- Eliza Griswold, reviewing it for the New York Times, praised its storytelling, and Chris Selley of the National Post called it "bloody good journalism" ([Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amanda_Lindhout)).
- Some journalists criticised the book, and parts of its account differ from Nigel Brennan's own memoir, *The Price of Life* (2011) ([Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amanda_Lindhout)).
- In 2014 Annapurna Pictures took an option to make a film of the book ([Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amanda_Lindhout)).

## After the book

In 2010 Lindhout founded the Global Enrichment Foundation, which funds university scholarships for women in Somalia, and she has worked on projects in the Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya ([Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amanda_Lindhout)). In 2015 Canadian police arrested a Somali man accused of acting as the kidnappers' negotiator; he was convicted in 2018 and sentenced to 15 years in prison ([Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amanda_Lindhout)).

## Where to read it

- Lending copy: [Internet Archive](https://archive.org/details/houseinskymemoir0000lind)
- In a library: [WorldCat](https://search.worldcat.org/search?q=A+House+in+the+Sky+Lindhout)

## Related pages

- [Books about Somalis since 2006](/en/history/books-about-somalis-since-2006/)
- [The Pirates of Somalia (2011), Jay Bahadur](/en/books/the-pirates-of-somalia-bahadur/)

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