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My Guantanamo Diary: The Detainees and the Stories They Told Me [Hardcover]

Mahvish Khan
4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)


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Book Description

June 24, 2008
Mahvish Khan is an American lawyer, born to immigrant Afghan parents in Michigan. Outraged that her country was illegally imprisoning people at Guantanamo, she volunteered to translate for the prisoners. She spoke their language, understood their customs, and brought them Starbucks chai, the closest available drink to the kind of tea they would drink at home. And they quickly befriended her, offering fatherly advice as well as a uniquely personal insight into their plight, and that of their families thousands of miles away.

For Mahvish Khan the experience was a validation of her Afghan heritage—as well as her American freedoms, which allowed her to intervene at Guantanamo purely out of her sense that it was the right thing to do. Mahvish Khan's story is a challenging, brave, and essential test of who she is —and who we are.



Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. In her moving debut memoir, a young journalist recounts her time as a translator for the detainees of notorious Guantánamo Bay prison. As a law student and American-born daughter of Pashtun (ethnic Afghan) immigrants, Khan seeks a translator position at one of the private law firms that represent the Guantanamo inmates, some of whom spend years in prison before offered a "fair" trial-or even access to counsel. Shockingly, many of the detainees Khan encounters are average citizens placed in prison due to unfortunate circumstances, the blind aggression of modern anti-terror tactics and the incompetence of its enforcers; one detainee, elderly stroke patient Nusrat, was detained after questioning the authorities regarding the arrest of his son (accused of having ties with al-Qaeda). Revealing near-universal abuse, both mental and physical, inflicted on the prisoners, Khan's account is plenty powerful-and that's before she travels alone to war-torn Afghanistan in order to prove her clients' innocence. Khan also divulges her poignant reunions with several prisoners following their release, a bittersweet breath of fresh air amid a nightmarish, eye-opening and important account.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Khan, the daughter of Afghan immigrants and a recent law-school graduate, began volunteering as an interpreter for the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) following the 2004 Supreme Court decision stating that Guantánamo prisoners had to be allowed access to U.S. courts. She first visited the base in January 2006 and met prisoners with widely diverse backgrounds, from a 22-year-old picked up in Pakistan, probably by bounty hunters, and turned over to U.S. forces to detainee #1009, Guantánamo’s oldest prisoner, an illiterate old man from the mountains of Afghanistan. Acknowledging that she had no access to the 14 high value detainees with obvious ties to the Taliban, Khan interviews many whose incarceration appears dubious at best. Each has a story of being savagely beaten, deprived of sleep, sexually abused, left in solitary confinement for months, exposed to extreme cold and constant noise—all with no opportunity to prove their innocence. Stunning details all but hidden from the daily news reports may bring American readers to conclude, as has Khan, that my government has duped me. --Deborah Donovan

Product Details

  • Hardcover: 320 pages
  • Publisher: PublicAffairs; First Edition edition (June 24, 2008)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1586484982
  • ISBN-13: 978-1586484989
  • Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 1.1 x 8.3 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
  • Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,149,964 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

4.5 out of 5 stars
(21)
4.5 out of 5 stars
I am very much enjoying reading this book. Eric Peterson  |  11 reviewers made a similar statement
Its really crazy how much stuff goes on that we dont know about in the world. duer  |  8 reviewers made a similar statement
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
17 of 21 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic Book June 15, 2008
By Poe
Format:Hardcover
This book is one of those books that you will not be able to get out of your thoughts. The book beautifully written. It is almost impossible to put down. What I enjoyed most about My Guantanamo Diary, is that it it transcends the story of Guantanamo. It is a human story about relationships, love and betrayal that I think many people will be able to relate to.

Mahvish Khan is a brilliant writer. The book is joyous, and smart and at the same time distressing. She has a pleasingly cynical sense of humor, one that cuts right through the material. This is such good material that is well considered and presented.
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11 of 14 people found the following review helpful
By allison
Format:Hardcover
A MUST read book - An insightful, heartrendering, and beautiful piece of literture. I laughed, shed tears, vacilated between the shock of the governments torture methods and pride of the author's courage and determination to uphold the tenable principles of the United States Constitution.

The author allows readers to experience events, tribulations and personalities through her eyes, cultural knowledge and objectivity. I vicariously journeyed the route - Florida - Guantanamo -Afghanistan with Mavish talking to me.
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13 of 17 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
In this book My Guantánamo Diary the author shows why in an election year, we citizens have to know what our government is doing. Mahvish Khan is an American born lawyer, which I hope people remember.

She is not an enemy of the United States, but such a lover of the United States Constitution, which I wish more supporters of the Bush administration were. She even notes that when she first went to Guantánamo even she assumed she would be meeting terrorists.

The author also is a very positive person so please don't assume the book is all gloom and doom. As an American I found the book to be a wonderful insight into how far we have come since Washington was President, to a place I personally don't like.

The book will or should make you ask yourself if you were arrested, how long do you think you should be held without contact with a lawyer or visits from family? And the author also shares that those men who have been freed after six or more years of arrest, because they were not guilty, do not have hatred toward the American citizen. Would you be as gracious if you were in their shoes?

The book also reminded me that George Washington wrote in a March 24, 1784, letter to his aide Tench Tilghman, saying that Muslims should be hired. Thomas Jefferson owned and read the Quran. Muslims have been in America since the early 1700's.
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12 of 16 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Everyone in the US should read this July 9, 2008
Format:Hardcover
This well-written expose of Guantanamo Bay puts a human face on the prisoners that are incarcerated there. The shameful detention of 'enemy combatants' in miserable conditions by the US government, in some cases for years without a trial, needs to be better known.
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9 of 12 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
The author is an American born of Afghan immigrants. Her Father became a successful cardiologist and her Mother became the director of neonatology. Mahvish grew up caught in between the realities of two worlds... her parent's restrictive, conservative, old world disciplines, and her longing for a bit more of the looser American way. She graduated from the University Of Michigan and then attended law school at the University Of Miami. In 2005 while in law school, "she was studying the federal torture statues and how policy makers had cleverly circumvented legal principles in creating the military detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where prisoners in the "war on terror" could be held indefinitely without being charged with any crime." Mahvish felt the pain of September 11th as an American... "But also understood the need to invade Afghanistan and destroy the Taliban and al-Qaeda. But I also felt the suffering of the Afghans, when hundreds of Afghan men were rounded up and thrust into the black hole of detention at Guantanamo." This led her to volunteer to become an interpreter between volunteer lawyers and the detainees. And this leads to the core of this heart-breaking... heart-warming... educational odyssey... into what is really going on in Guantanamo, and the horrifying abuse in route to there .

In an attempt to convey to potential readers, the "delicate" power in the words and meaning communicated by the author in this book... I feel it would be helpful to share with you how it affected me. I am an honorably discharged Viet Nam era Veteran, who has always felt very strongly that America was losing a lot more of our precious American lives in battle, because we seem to be the only country that adheres to true "RULES OF ENGAGEMENT".
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Guantanamo Diary Thoughts July 27, 2012
Format:Paperback
"My Guantanamo Diary" by Mahvish Rukhsana Khan is not a book that I had on a list or had recommended to me. While gazing through the "Librarian's Choice" section in my library, I stumbled across the book and thought the title looked intriguing. Luckily, I decided to read "My Guantanamo Diary: The Detainees and the Stories They Told Me" because it was a fantastic, thoughtful, and even political, read.

"My Guantanamo Diary" is written by former law student and journalist Mahvish Rukhsana Khan, who has been published in the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, and New York Times.

The book tells the story of Mahvish in law school, learning about the injustices that were occurring at Guantanamo Bay, and wanting to get involved. Mahvish begins her journey believing that these men may be terrorists and dangerous criminals, but they deserve a fair trial. She quickly discovers that more of the detainees may be innocent rather than guilty, and the evidence for their detention is slim to none. Mahvish explores some of the Afghan detainee's stories, their capture, torture, journey through Gitmo, as well as their family life at home.

The book does get political (although very easy to read and understand for someone who is not political at all), and has some anti-Bush comments, although it is not anti-America. The stories are touching and the injustices that are committed are hard to argue with.
... Read more ›
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars First hand accounts are always the best
There are only three books that I have on the topic of Guantanamo Bay:

For God and Country by James Yee
Enemy Combatant by Moazzam Begg
My Guantanamo Diary by... Read more
Published on April 17, 2011 by Texas Reader
4.0 out of 5 stars Great, but...
Let me start by saying that I did enjoy this book. It is well-written, emotion-provoking, and has the ring of truth. Read more
Published on March 26, 2011 by Emily A. Strecker
5.0 out of 5 stars Should be compulsory reading
I thought this book was great. Some very heart-wrenching stories about some of the inmates who were clearly in the wrong place at the wrong time and hardly 'terrorists. Read more
Published on July 18, 2010 by Rachel of Oz
5.0 out of 5 stars Eye-opening experience
I have always been interested in and concerned for human rights throughout the world. As one who will eternally be a proud American, I'm still not sure what to make of Khan's... Read more
Published on July 17, 2010 by Sue J. Chae
1.0 out of 5 stars apologia for terrorism
If you want to believe that Islamic terrorists are just innocent, casual individuals then this book will not disappoint. Read more
Published on February 10, 2010 by Lucky Jenkins
5.0 out of 5 stars Is all this chatter about Gitmo, justified?
The book is so well written I couldn't put it down. Besides, how can one argue with a person who claims to have first hand knowledge of the Gitmo situation by working there as a... Read more
Published on June 30, 2009 by Andrew J. Rodriguez
5.0 out of 5 stars Who are we
Another excellent book that tells us that yes, Americans have used methods associated with the worst empires in history. We do use torture. Read more
Published on April 3, 2009 by Jeremiah Teague
5.0 out of 5 stars one of my fav books
This is one of the best books i have read in awhile. Its really crazy how much stuff goes on that we dont know about in the world. Read more
Published on March 1, 2009 by duer
5.0 out of 5 stars A Very Touching Book
This book is a must for anyone trying to get a complete picture of the war on terror. It puts human faces on some of the suffering caused by the misguided efforts of the Bush... Read more
Published on January 30, 2009 by Louanne M. Peterson
5.0 out of 5 stars Thank you for using your language/law skills to reveal the truth
Thank you for these moving portraits of the human beings being "detained" (it only! actually tortured) in the name of "freedom. Read more
Published on December 30, 2008 by Susan Goewey
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