Lori : My Daughter, Wrongfully Imprisoned in Peru [Hardcover]

Rhoda Berenson (Author), Ramsey Clark (Preface), Noam Chomsky (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 2000

Five years ago, 26-year-old Lori Berenson, an anthropology major, was in Peru researching articles on poverty and women's rights. She was arrested and spuriously charged with acting as a leader in a Peruvian terrorist group, the MRTA (Movimiento Revolucionario Tupac Amaru). Tried without evidence by military officials, she was convicted and sent to a Draconian mountaintop prison with no heat, electricity, or running water. Lori's health has deteriorated as her parents work tirelessly to free her. This is their harrowing story, one that continues, day to day, as the Berensons, working with American officials, attempt to persuade the Peruvian government to reconsider her fate.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The grueling experiences described by Berenson constitute a crash course in the arbitrary horrors of human rights abuses. Since December 1995, 30-year-old Lori Berenson, an American citizen from New York, has been imprisonedDin appalling conditionsDin Peru. She was found guilty of treason for allegedly conspiring to attack the Peruvian Congress as a member of the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement and sentenced to life imprisonment by a hooded military tribunal who refused to allow her attorney to present evidence or question witnesses. This dramatic and engrossing account by Lori's mother details the long struggle she and her husband, Mark, have endured in trying to get their daughter's sentence overturned. Both of them have given up their academic careers to dedicate their full-time efforts to a campaign to free Lori. Berenson forcefully argues that Lori was not a terrorist but a journalist, with valid press credentials, who had written about social and economic injustice in Peru. Just last month, Lori's conviction was in fact overturned, and she was granted a civilian trial. Because political conditions are now so unstable in Peru (President Fujimori is stepping down because of a scandal), her fate is uncertain, but her parents are hoping that she will be released. (Nov. 1)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Berenson recalls the nearly five-year-old and continuing nightmare that began with a phone call announcing the arrest of her daughter, Lori, in December 1995, in Peru on charges of treason and terrorism. Lori was in Peru as a human-rights activist and journalist. The Berensons, both university professors, launched an ongoing campaign that has engaged major news organizations, human-rights advocacy groups, and prominent politicians to secure the release of their daughter, who has never been tried. But the "Kafka-like military tribunals" of Peru, the high-profile political investment of President Fujimori in the imprisonment of the "gringa terrorist," and a decided lack of interest by the U.S. State Department have stretched the agonizing period even beyond the turmoil of the recent presidential election. Berenson's book is a harrowing account of the repressive politics of a nation that remains in the headlines today and is a story of hope, determination, and endurance in the face of global politics. Vanessa Bush
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: Context Books; First Edition edition (October 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1893956067
• ISBN-13: 978-1893956063
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.7 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,747,952 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A Mother's Feeble Defense, November 11, 2002

By 

Tony Monroe (New York, New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Lori: My Daughter, Wrongfully Imprisoned in Peru (Paperback)

I read this book a few years after hearing about Lori's imprisonment in Peru and subsequent appeals for justice. I found the book seriously lacking in objectivity,and blatantly polemical in its awkward defense of Lori's bizarre behavior and misplaced good intentions. The author glosses over what seem to me to be the basic questions in this case--such as, why was Lori living in a house full of guns, ammunition, and terrorist operatives? Why was the U.S. ambassador to Peru so critical of her case? Why are so many congressmen unwilling to support her appeals? Why are human rights organizations uninterested in her case?

The author seems enthralled by her daughter's personality, intelligence, tenacity, motivation. Her fixation on Lori's "specialness" apparently began prenatal. An example of this daughter worship is an embarrassing comment about an embassy official's pro forma visit with Lori and Mrs. Berenson's jealousy that a near stranger could bask in Lori's charm and wit!

The final pages of the book consists of long and undigested quotes from Lori's judicial appeal. There is no analysis, just Lori's long, unbroken soliloquy.

22 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Lori, Angry Activist, Rhoda, Imprisoned Mother, August 18, 2005

By 

Jennifer (Chicago) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Lori : My Daughter, Wrongfully Imprisoned in Peru (Hardcover)

This is a very strange memoir of a mother obsessed with her daughter's imprisonment in a faraway land for alleged terrorist activities. I don't know whether she committed these acts but the photograph of Lori on the cover of the book makes me wonder: Who is Lori? In any event, she looks like a sadist, not a human rights activist. Rhoda spends the entire book complaining about injustices, with a capital I--and her plane trips to Peru.

12 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Well written but biased account of a mother's nightmare, July 16, 2002

By 

richard thoman (Ithaca, New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Lori: My Daughter, Wrongfully Imprisoned in Peru (Paperback)

I read the book and unlike many of the impassioned reviewers below, was not at all that convinced by Rhoda Berenson's defense of her daughter. For one thing, the book is mostly a broad indictment of the Peruvian criminal justice system (which clearly isn't very just) and the Berenson's (unsuccessful) efforts to bring their daughter home. Although told in chronological format, the book is a highly selective account that avoids hard, controversial questions, or at best, answers them superficially.. The reader learns more about Rhoda than about Lori, who is sketched as a sort of a modern-day humanitarian saint on a mission of peace and goodwill. Others might call her foolhardy.
This book does not challenge that assertion, but it does argue persuasively that Lori has suffered enough and should be released.