Soon to be a major motion picture The first close-up look at the hidden world of Somali pirates by a young journalist who dared to make his way into their remote havens and spent a year infiltrating their lives.   For centuries, stories of pirates have captured imaginations around the world. The recent ragtag bands of pirates off the coast of Somalia, hijacking multimillion-dollar tankers owned by international shipping conglomerates, have brought the scourge of piracy into the modern era. Jay Bahadur’s riveting narrative exposé—the first of its kind—looks at who these men are, how they live, the forces that created piracy in Somalia, how the pirates spend the ransom money, how they deal with their hostages, among much, much more. It is a revelation of a dangerous world at the epicenter of political and natural disaster. “Brave and exhaustively reported. . . . Bahadur has gone deep in exploring the causes of this seaborne crime wave.” — The New York Times Book Review “Bahadur has borne witness and seen what no other journalist has seen. He has peeked behind the curtain of the pirates of Somalia in their faraway tribal homelands . . . and lived to tell about it.” — The Boston Globe   “A fascinating narrative that opens a hitherto largely unknown world to a wider audience.” — San Francisco Chronicle   "An illuminating guide. . . . Bahadur has probably spent more time with Somali pirates than just about any other Western researcher or writer.” — The New Republic “A first-of-its kind book. . . . Takes readers through the evolution of the pirate groups from garrulous, self-proclaimed vigilantes who claim they are protecting Somalia’s waters from illegal fishing vessels to the deadly criminal gangs they are today.” — Associated Press   “Convincing. . . . In Bahadur’s telling, the fractured, tribal governance of Somalia’s territories is almost unbelievable in its dysfunction. And the year-by-year evolution of Somalian piracy is mesmerizing. . . . Look to The Pirates of Somalia for an aggregation of all the news stories about this phenomenon over the past four years, with the additional, intimate layer—stories of the pirates from the pirates themselves—that no one else was reckless enough to get.” — The Plain Dealer   “This vivid and intelligent study of Somali pirates uncovers the reckless men behind the nation’s most lucrative business. . . . A balanced and fascinating portrait.” — The Sunday Times (London)   “An insightful report. . . . Revelatory journalism and astute analysisof causes and solutions that prove far more informative than any TV footage about the contemporary piracy problem.” — Booklist   “An engaging account, full of solid analysis. . . . What’s especially impressive (aside from Bahadur’s sheer nerve in insinuating himself among these dangerous men in a lawless corner of the world) is the amassing of multiple perspectives—of pirates and policymakers— that support a rich, suspenseful account.” — Publishers Weekly Jay Bahadur’s articles have appeared in The Times (London), The New York Times , the Financial Times , and The Globe and Mail (Toronto). He has advised the United States State Department and has worked as a freelance correspondent for CBS News. Bahadur currently lives in Nairobi, where he works as managing editor of the news site Somalia Report . www.jaybahadur.com Twitter: @PuntlandPirates Prologue Where the White Man Runs Away It was my first trip to Africa. I arrived in Somalia in the frayed seat of a 1970s Soviet Antonov propeller plane, heading into the internationally unrecognized region of Puntland on a solo quest to meet some present-day pirates. The 737s of Dubai, with their meal services and functioning seatbelts, were a distant memory; the plane I was in was not even allowed to land in Dubai, and the same probably went for the unkempt, ill-tempered Ukrainian pilot. To the ancient Egyptians, Punt had been a land of munifi cent treasures and bountiful wealth; in present times, it was a land of peo­ple who robbed wealth from the rest of the world. Modern Puntland, a self-governing region in northeastern Somalia, may or may not be the successor to the Punt of ancient times, but I was soon to discover that it contained none of the gold and ebony that dazzled the Egyp­tians—save perhaps for the colours of the sand and the skin of the nomadic goat and camel herders who had inhabited it for centuries. The cabin absorbed the heat of the midday African sun like a Dutch oven, thickening the air until it was unbearable to breathe. Sweat poured freely off my skin and soaked into the torn cloth of my seat cover. Male passengers fanned themselves with the Russian-language aircraft safety cards; the women fanned their children. The high whine of the Antonov’s propellers changed pitch as it accelerated along the Djibouti runway, building towards a droning cres cendo that I had not heard outside of decades-old movies. The stories I had heard of these plane