Synopses & Reviews
An unprecedented international publishing event: the first and only diary written by a still-imprisoned Guantánamo detainee.
Since 2002, Mohamedou Slahi has been imprisoned at the detention camp at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. In all these years, the United States has never charged him with a crime. A federal judge ordered his release in March 2010, but the U.S. government fought that decision, and there is no sign that the United States plans to let him go.
Three years into his captivity Slahi began a diary, recounting his life before he disappeared into U.S. custody, "his endless world tour" of imprisonment and interrogation, and his daily life as a Guantánamo prisoner. His diary is not merely a vivid record of a miscarriage of justice, but a deeply personal memoir — terrifying, darkly humorous, and surprisingly gracious. Published now for the first time, Guantánamo Diary is a document of immense historical importance and a riveting and profoundly revealing read.
Review
"Harrowing....Slahi describes the brutal interrogation he endured at Guantanamo — which was one of the two most extreme interrogations conducted there — and he does so vividly, sometimes nauseatingly. Slahi writes rather well, and even the many redactions don't really get in the way. It's well worth a read." Benjamin Wittes, Lawfare
Review
"One of the most significant informants ever to be held at Guantanamo." Peter Finn, Washington Post
Review
"Once considered such a high-value detainee that former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld designated him for 'special interrogation techniques'....Slahi had been subjected to sleep deprivation, exposed to extremes of heat and cold, moved around the base blindfolded, and at one point taken into the bay on a boat and threatened with death....Slahi faces no criminal charges." Carol Rosenberg, Miami Herald
Review
"A vision of hell, beyond Orwell, beyond Kafka: perpetual torture prescribed by the mad doctors of Washington." John le Carré
Review
"This is an incredible document, and a hell of a story." Steve Kroft, correspondent for 60 Minutes
Review
"Anyone who reads Guantanamo Diary — and every American with a shred of conscience should do so, now — will be ashamed and appalled. Mohamedou Ould Slahi's demand for simple justice should be our call to action. Because what's at stake in this case is not just the fate of one man who managed, against all odds, to tell his story, but the future of our democracy." Glenn Greenwald, No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the U.S. Surveillance State
Review
"Here, finally, is the disturbing and stirring story the United States government tried for years to conceal. Mohamedou Ould Slahi's ordeal shocks the conscience, to be sure. But on display in these pages is something much deeper as well: an enduring faith in our common humanity, and in the power of truth to leap prison walls and bridge divides. With devastating clarity and considerable wit, Guantánamo Diary reminds us why we call certain things human rights." Anthony Romero, Executive Director, American Civil Liberties Union
About the Author
Mohamedou Slahi was born in Mauritania. He left the country at the age of 18, on a scholarship to study in Germany. In the early 1990s, he interrupted his studies and went to Afghanistan to join al-Qaida units fighting (with American support) the Soviet-backed government in Kabul. He returned to Germany in 1992, completing his engineering degree and living and working first in Germany and then, for a few months, in Montreal, Canada. After his November 2001 apprehension by a Jordanian commando team, he was held in isolation and interrogated for the next seven and a half months before the Jordanians concluded he had had no involvement with the Millennium plot. Nevertheless, a CIA rendition team captured him and on August 5, 2002, he was incarcerated at Guantanamo. Despite being cleared by multiple courts and foreign governments, he remained imprisoned. He has never been charged with a crime.
Larry Siems is director of the Freedom to Write and International Programs at PEN American Center and the author of The Torture Report: What the Documents Say About America's Post-9/11 Torture Program. He lives in New York.