"Fascinating and timely" Jeremy Bowen


Held hostage for many years by terrorists in Lebanon, John McCarthy is all too familiar with the pain and injustice of being denied your home. Determined to understand the day-to-day complexities of being a Palestian-Arab in modern-day Israel, he embarks on a deeply personal journey from the shores of the Mediterranean to the desert landscape of the Negev. He discovers the hidden stories of the ordinary people who must live out their lives in the shadow of a brutal conflict, and asks the vital question - how does humanity endure under such great oppression?

As a journalist in television news John McCarthy was sent on his first foreign assignment to Beirut in 1986 aged twenty-nine. His career was abruptly cut short by militiamen who kidnapped and held him captive for five and a half years.

Since his release he has written four books prior to this one - Some Other Rainbow (with Jill Morrell), about his hostage years, Island Race (with Sandi Toksvig), an account of their circumnavigation of Britain, Between Extremes (with Brian Keenan), a journey through Chile and his latest, A Ghost Upon Your Path. He continues to work in both radio and television.