If you like nonfiction - that reads like a suspenseful novel, enlightens, and inspires - then multiple award-winning "PATH to FREEDOM: My Story of Perseverance" is for you. Witness what happened after its author unwittingly returned, upon graduating from West Point, to a government which had become a dictatorship - overnight. Its leaders obsessed about him being a spy for the United States. His was the impossible task of proving that he was not – or else!

The historically-accurate, coming-of-age story about survival has a simple proposition - fly-or-die! The Smithsonian Institute displays the inspiring memoir in its Anacostia Museum Library because of its insightful perspective.

If you like nonfiction - that reads like a suspenseful novel, enlightens, and inspires - then multiple award-winning PATH to FREEDOM: My Story of Perseverance is for you. Witness what happened after its author unwittingly returned, upon graduating from West Point, to a government which had become a dictatorship - overnight. Its leaders obsessed about him being a spy for the United States - because of West Point. The Smithsonian displays the historically-accurate, coming-of-age memoir in its Anacostia Museum Library because of its insightful perspective.
 
Little about Conrad Taylor's upbringing in a vibrant remote mining town - deep in impenetrable tropical rain forests of Guyana, South America - prepared him for West Point. An extraordinary opportunity for most, attending the highly-regimented United States Military Academy was a life-changer for him. Enduring culture shock, navigating rude awakenings, and surviving the rigorous West Point Experience hardened Taylor for dealing with an anti-American, totalitarian government fearful of the young graduate being in cahoots with the United States to effect regime change. His was the impossible task of proving that he was not - or else!
 
PATH to FREEDOM: My Story of Perseverance offers a ringside seat to the cultural trauma of emigration, the unique experience that is West Point, the personal side of superpower geopolitics, and the mayhem of Third World politics. The narrative charts a sometimes-humorous journey of resilience, hope, survival, and love. Its revelations will be nostalgic for some, shocking to many, and enlightening for others. Its subtly-threaded love story will enchant - at the very least. PATH to FREEDOM has a simple proposition. Fly-or-die!

Conrad Taylor is a West Point and MIT graduate, whose multiple award-winning memoir, PATH to FREEDOM: My Story of Perseverance is on display at The Smithsonian's Anacostia Museum Library. The renowned Institute selected the truth-is-stranger-than-fiction nonfiction as a source of insights about the history and culture of black people in the Western Hemisphere.

Taylor grew up in a remote mining town in the upper reaches of the Amazon rainforests in Guyana, South America. His was an ordinary upbringing, until the extraordinary happened. Conrad won a coveted scholarship to the United States Military Academy in 1969. Attending the highly-regimented institution during the height of the Cold War, the Vietnam conflict, and the 60s counterculture upheavals thrust him on a collision course with a paranoid dictatorship after West Point - because of West Point. The former Guyana Defense Force officer barely escaped its grasp.

Humble roots, rude awakenings, and the life changer that is the West Point Experience inform Taylor's perspective as an author and business professional. The avid soccer fan and former youth soccer coach played for ARMY West Point in three NCAA soccer playoffs.