Leszli Kálli is a

Colombia Colombia (, ; ), officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country in South America with insular regions in North America—near Nicaragua's Caribbean coast—as well as in the Pacific Ocean. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Car ...

n-born author who was kidnapped and held for slightly more than a year by Colombian

leftist Left-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that support and seek to achieve social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy. Left-wing politics typically involve a concern for those in soci ...

guerrillas Guerrilla warfare is a form of irregular warfare in which small groups of combatants, such as paramilitary personnel, armed civilians, or irregulars, use military tactics including ambushes, sabotage, raids, petty warfare, hit-and-run tactics ...

. The diary she kept to record her experiences was published in February, 2007.

Biography

Leszli Kálli was born and raised in

Bucaramanga Bucaramanga () is the capital and largest city of the department of Santander, Colombia. Bucaramanga has the fifth-largest economy by GDP in Colombia, has the lowest unemployment rate and has the ninth-largest population in the country, with 68 ...

, Colombia. On 12 April 1999, Kálli boarded a plane in Colombia to work on a

kibbutz A kibbutz ( he, קִבּוּץ / , lit. "gathering, clustering"; plural: kibbutzim / ) is an intentional community in Israel that was traditionally based on agriculture. The first kibbutz, established in 1909, was Degania. Today, farming h ...

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

. Part-way through the trip, the plane was hijacked by a leftist guerrilla group and forced to land on an abandoned runway in the jungle. Kálli, along with her father and the other passengers, were held hostage for 373 days. During this time she kept a diary, which was made into a book, ''Kidnapped: A Diary of My 373 days in Captivity'', that was published in February 2007. She lives in Canada under

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and international security, security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be ...

witness protection.Atkinson, N. (2007). Lost and found. ''

Chatelaine Chatelaine may refer to: * Chatelaine (chain), a set of short chains on a belt worn by women and men for carrying keys, thimble and/or sewing kit, etc. *Chatelaine (horse), a racehorse * ''Chatelaine'' (magazine), an English-language Canadian wom ...

magazine'' (Interview with Leszli Kálli, March 2007)

Publications

''Kidnapped: A Diary of My 373 days in Captivity''
Kálli's diary of her time in the jungle (published by

Simon & Schuster Simon & Schuster () is an American publishing company and a subsidiary of Paramount Global. It was founded in New York City on January 2, 1924 by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster. As of 2016, Simon & Schuster was the third largest publ ...

References

1990s missing person cases Canadian people of Hungarian descent Colombian emigrants to Canada Colombian people of Hungarian descent Colombian women writers Formerly missing people Living people Missing person cases in Colombia Hijacking survivors People from Bucaramanga Women diarists Year of birth missing (living people) {{colombia-writer-stub

Biography

See also

Publications

References