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

Mahvish Khan (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 22, 2009

Mahvish Khan is the only Afghan-American to walk into Guantanamo of her own accord. This unique book is her story, and the story of the men she grew to know uniquely well inside the cages of Guantanamo. Mahvish Khan is an American lawyer, born to immigrant Afghan parents. She was outraged that her country, the USA, seemed to have suspended its tradition of equality for all under the law with regard to those imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, and so she volunteered to translate for the lawyers - including British lawyer and founder of Reprieve Clive Stafford Smith - acting pro bono for the prisoners. Because 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, 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 at home. Some at Guantanamo are terrorists who deserve to be convicted and sentenced as such. Some are paediatricians and school teachers. We cannot tell the difference until we see them as individuals with their own unique stories. They deserve that much. No other writer has had access to the detainees. This book is a testament to their captivity. It documents the voices of men who have been tortured and held in a black hole of indefinite detention without legal recourse for years. It shows who they are and also allows readers to see that these men are more similar to us than they are different.

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. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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 --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: PublicAffairs; Reprint edition (June 22, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1586487078
• ISBN-13: 978-1586487072
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #997,544 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #92 in Books > History > Military > Prisoners of War

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic Book, June 15, 2008

By 

Poe "sharkstail" (LA JOLLA, US, Canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: My Guantanamo Diary: The Detainees and the Stories They Told Me (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.

11 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars My Guantanamo Diary: The Detainees and the Stories They Told Me, June 16, 2008

By 

allison - See all my reviews

This review is from: My Guantanamo Diary: The Detainees and the Stories They Told Me (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.

13 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Spectacular book And a MUST read in an election year, July 27, 2008

By 

MotherLodeBeth "MotherLodeBeth" (Sierras of California) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: My Guantanamo Diary: The Detainees and the Stories They Told Me (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.