Fearless Women, Powerful Stories: A Three Part Virtual Series

Hostage

A Memoir of Terrorism, Trauma, and Resilience

Passengers aboard Trans World Airlines Flight 741 were held on board for six days in sweltering heat without flushable toilets or running water. Most were eventually sent home.

Mimi, however, was accused of being an Israeli soldier and held with thirty-one other hostages in Amman, where they feared for their lives as a violent civil war erupted around them.

In Hostage: A Memoir of Terrorism, Trauma, and Resilience, Mimi recounts her survival of the hijacking of TWA Flight 741—an event that became one of the most significant episodes in aviation history and an early defining moment of international terrorism.

Told with courage and empathy, Hostage explores not only what happened in those terrifying days, but how trauma can shape a life long after the immediate danger has passed.

Mimi Nichter

Mimi Nichter is an award-winning cultural anthropologist, public speaker, and professor emerita of anthropology at the University of Arizona.

Her essays have appeared in Newsweek, HuffPost, Brevity Blog, and Career Authors.

Her memoir, Hostage, was a finalist for the Literary Award in Nonfiction at the 2026 Tucson Festival of Books and has received both the 2026 Next Generation Indie Award for Memoir/Overcoming Adversity and a Literary Titan Gold Book Award for Nonfiction.

Take a look at the rest of the Fearless Women, Powerful Stories Virtual Series: https://www.jccbuffalo.org/cover-to-cover/