Michael Scott Moore

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Michael Scott Moore
Michael Scott Moore 7280005.jpg
Moore reads at Politics & Prose bookstore, July 28, 2018
Born1969 (age 53–54)
Los Angeles, California
OccupationAuthor, journalist
LanguageEnglish, German
CitizenshipUS, Germany
Alma materUniversity of California, San Diego
Genrenon-fiction, fiction
Website
radiofreemike.net/home

Michael Scott Moore (born 1969) is an American journalist and novelist. He is the author of Sweetness and Blood (2010), about the history of surfing, and The Desert and the Sea (2018), a memoir about his captivity in Somalia.

Contents

Moore graduated from University of California, San Diego in 1991 with a degree in German Literature. He lives in Berlin and also holds German citizenship. In January 2012, he was abducted in Galkayo, Somalia while researching a book about piracy. [1] Moore was held captive for over two and a half years, and released September 22, 2014. [2] He is a member of the Board of Directors of Hostage US, a non-profit that supports American hostages and their families.

Abduction

Moore (right) with fellow hostage Rolly Tambara at a reunion in Seychelles in 2018 Michael Scott Moore with fellow hostage.jpg
Moore (right) with fellow hostage Rolly Tambara at a reunion in Seychelles in 2018

Moore traveled to Somalia on a grant from the Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting to research a book on piracy. He was abducted by a local gang of pirates in January 2012 in the town of Galkayo. Several days later, two aid workers, Jessica Buchanan and Poul Thisted, also being held by Somali pirates, were rescued by a Navy SEAL operation. The gang holding Moore subsequently demanded $20 million. [3]

American officials and the German Foreign Ministry collaborated on negotiations with the pirates, until Moore was freed September 22, 2014. It took 977 days for Moore to be released by the pirates after 1.6 million dollars was paid. [4]

Career

Moore has published three books, including the novel Too Much of Nothing, [5] published by Carroll & Graf, and the nonfiction history of surfing Sweetness and Blood: How Surfing Spread from Hawaii and California to the Rest of the World, with Some Unexpected Results, published by Rodale in 2010. [6] Sweetness and Blood was named a Best Book of 2010 by The Economist [7] and PopMatters. [8] The Desert and the Sea became a Nielsen besteller in August 2018, shortly after its publication on July 24, 2018.[ citation needed ]

Moore worked as the theater columnist for SF Weekly, [9] until he moved to Berlin, Germany in 2005. In Germany he worked as both a staff and a freelance editor for Spiegel Online International. In 2010-11 he covered a trial of ten Somali pirates in Hamburg who were charged with trying to hijack the MV Taipan. [10]

His journalism has been published in The Atlantic Monthly, The New Republic, and the Los Angeles Times. From 2009 to 2012, he also wrote a weekly column for Miller-McCune (now Pacific Standard) on trans-Atlantic issues, including the NATO effort against Somali pirates. [11] In 2009, for the column, he sailed on the Turkish frigate Gediz which had been charged with catching pirates in the Gulf of Aden. [12]

Works

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Galkayo</span> City in Mudug, Puntland

Galkayo is the third-largest city in Somalia which serves as the capital of the north-central Mudug region. The city is divided into two administrative areas separated by a loose boundary.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Qardho</span> City in Puntland, Somalia

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<i>Maersk Alabama</i> hijacking 2009 piracy incident

The Maersk Alabamahijacking began on 9 April 2009, when four pirates in the Somali Basin seized the U.S. cargo ship Maersk Alabama at a distance of 240 nautical miles southeast of Eyl, Somalia. The siege ended after a rescue effort by the United States Navy on 12 April.

Abduwali Abdulkadir Muse is a convicted Somali pirate. He is the sole survivor of four pirates who hijacked the MV Maersk Alabama in April 2009 and then held Captain Richard Phillips for ransom. On 16 February 2011, Muse was sentenced to 33 years and 9 months in U.S. federal prison.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Richard Phillips (merchant mariner)</span> Captain of the hijacked MV Maersk Alabama in 2009

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The MV York is a tanker for transport of liquefied gas that after its 2010 capture by Somali pirates had become a mothership for pirate operations. The vessel was released on March 10, 2011, after an unknown amount of ransom had been paid.

Savina Caylyn is an oil tanker of the Italian shipping line Fratelli D'Amato. On 8 February 2011, she was hijacked by Somali pirates some 500 miles (800 km) off the Indian Coast and some 880 miles (1,420 km) off the Somali Coast. The 17 Indian and 5 Italian crew members of the Italy-registered vessel are reported to be unharmed, but taken hostage.

The SY Quest incident occurred in February 2011 when Somali pirates seized the American yacht SY Quest and four United States citizens. The United States Navy ordered the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise and three other ships to free the hostages. All four hostages were shot by their captors.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rescue of Jessica Buchanan and Poul Hagen Thisted</span> 2012 US special forces raid in Somalia

On January 25, 2012, a team of United States Navy SEALs raided a compound 12 miles north of the Somali city of Adado, killing nine Somali pirates and freeing their hostages, American Jessica Buchanan and Dane Poul Hagen Thisted.

<i>Captain Phillips</i> (film) 2013 film by Paul Greengrass

Captain Phillips is a 2013 American biographical action thriller film directed by Paul Greengrass. Based on the 2009 Maersk Alabama hijacking, the film tells the story of the eponymous Captain Richard Phillips, an American merchant mariner who was taken hostage by Somali pirates. It stars Tom Hanks as Phillips, alongside Barkhad Abdi as pirate leader Abduwali Muse.

Ashwin Raman is a German journalist and documentary filmmaker of Indian descent. Raman is notable for a number of prize-winning documentaries which have garnered him the Grimme Prize (2017), the Robert Geisendörfer Prize (2012), Otto Brenner Special Award, the international CNN Rory Peck Award and the Deutscher Fernsehpreis, among others.

References

  1. ↑ Strange, Hannah. "Journalist Michael Scott Moore Released After Nearly Three Years as a Hostage". www.Vice.com. Retrieved 8 March 2015.
  2. ↑ "American-German Journalist Michael Scott Moore Released in Somalia". Der Spiegel. September 23, 2014. Retrieved 2 March 2015.
  3. ↑ "A War Journalist's Worst Case Scenario: The Kidnapping of Michael Scott Moore". Medium.com. Retrieved 8 March 2015.
  4. ↑ "American-German Journalist Michael Scott Moore Released in Somalia". Der Spiegel. September 23, 2014. Retrieved 8 March 2015.
  5. ↑ "Fiction Book Review: Too Much of Nothing by Michael Scott Moore". Publishersweekly.com. Retrieved 8 March 2015.
  6. ↑ Martin, Andy. "Book Review: Sweetness and Blood by Michael Scott Moore". NYTimes.com. Retrieved 8 March 2015.
  7. ↑ "Page Turners". www.economist.com. Retrieved 8 March 2015.
  8. ↑ Popmatters Staff. "The Best Non-Fiction of 2010". www.popmatters.com. Retrieved 8 March 2015.
  9. ↑ Sherbert, Erin. "Michael Scott Moore, Former SF Weekly Writer, Kidnapped by Somali Pirates". SFWeekly.com. Retrieved 2 March 2015.
  10. ↑ "A Precedent or a Farce? Court Faces Daunting Hurdles in Hamburg Pirate Trial". www.spiegel.de. Retrieved 8 March 2015.
  11. ↑ Moore, Michael Scott. "What Are Those Warships Doing Off Somalia?". psmag.com. Retrieved 8 March 2015.
  12. ↑ Moore, Michael Scott. "How Do You Prosecute a Pirate?". psmag.com. Retrieved 8 March 2015.
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