3,096 Days by Natascha Kampusch
3,096 Days is the remarkable and shocking true account of the kidnap of Natascha Kampusch in 1998, who relives her traumatic experiences in this amazing true story.
On 2 March 1998 ten-year-old Natascha Kampusch was snatched off the street by a stranger and bundled into a white van. Hours later she was lying on a cold cellar floor, rolled up in a blanket. When she emerged from captivity in 2006, having endured one of the longest abductions in recent history, her childhood had gone.
in 3,096 Days Natascha tells her amazing story for the first time: her difficult childhood, what happened exactly on that fateful morning when she was on her way to school, her long imprisonment in a five-square-metre dungeon, and the physical and mental abuse she suffered from her abductor, Wolfgang Priklopil - who committed suicide by throwing himself under a train on the day she managed to make her escape.
3,096 Days is ultimately a story about the triumph of the human spirit. It describes how, in a situation of almost unbearable hopelessness, she learned how to manipulate her captor. And how, against inconceivable odds, she managed to escape unbroken.
'A brilliantly insightful dissection of her years in captivity ' Jon Ronson, Guardian
'An excellent book' Kathryn Hughes, Mail on Sunday
'Unflinching and remarkably devoid of self-pity... Remarkable - not just for Kampusch's account of her ordeal but as a testament to her indomitable spirit' Daisy Goodwin, Sunday Times
Natascha Kampusch was born on 17 February 1988 in Vienna and became victim, at the age of ten, to what proved to be one of the longest abductions in recent history. In 2006 she gained her freedom. On the day she escaped, her abductor Wolfgang Priklopil committed suicide by throwing himself under a train. Since then Natascha has been trying to live a normal life. In spring 2010, aged 22, she graduated from university.