Prisoner Without a Name, Cell Without a Number [Hardcover]

Jacobo Timerman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 12, 1981

The Americas, Ilan Stavans, Series Editor

€ Winner of a 1982 Los Angeles Times Book Prize € Selected by the New York Times for "Books of the Century" With a new introduction by Ilan Stavans and a new foreword by Arthur Miller.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“At two in the morning of April 15, 1977, twenty armed men in civilian clothes arrested Jacobo Timerman, editor and publisher of a leading Buenos Aires newspaper. Thus began thirty months of imprisonment, torture, and anti-Semitic abuse. . . . Unlike 15,000 other Argentines, ‘the disappeared,’ Timerman was eventually released into exile. His testimony [is] gripping in its human stories, not only of brutality but of courage and love; important because it reminds us how, in our world, the most terrible fantasies may become fact.”—New York Times, Books of the Century

“It ranks with Hannah Arendt’s Eichmann in Jerusalem in its examination of the totalitarian mind, the role of anti-Semitism, the silence.”—Eliot Fremont-Smith, Village Voice

“It is impossible to read this proud and piercing account of [Timerman’s] suffering and his battles without wanting to be counted as one of Timerman’s friends.”—Michael Walzer, New York Review of Books

“Timerman was a living reminder that real prophets are irritants and not messengers of reassurance. He told it like it is, whether in Argentina, Israel, Europe, or the United States.”—Arthur Miller --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Language Notes

Text: English, Spanish (translation)

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 164 pages
• Publisher: Knopf; 1st edition (April 12, 1981)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0394514483
• ISBN-13: 978-0394514482
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #351,813 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

29 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent, March 31, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Prisoner without a Name, Cell without a Number (Paperback)

Excellent analysis of the methodology behind totalitarian regimes, with emphasis on the persecution of Jews. Personally the most redeeming part I found in this book was Timerman's personal methods to cope with the traumatic torture, and, most applicable to myself, an existence without tenderness and love. His words ring loud and true, his advice is sound, sound, sound.

22 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent analysis of the totalitarian mindset, June 4, 2001

By 

"remisj" (Eugene, OR United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Prisoner without a Name, Cell without a Number (Paperback)

Jacobo Timerman has written a gripping and terrifying account of his experiences at the mercy of Argentina's Peronist regime of the late 70's. A well respected, professional journalist in Buenos Aires, he was editor of the major newspaper La Opinión until he was kidnapped by the military for publishing articles critical of their terrorist tactics. He details how as a political prisoner, and more signifigantly as a Jew, he was held and tortured by a military carried away by their own delusions and rationalizations of violence - and by their virulent anti-semitism. Timerman displays a penetrating insight into the mindset of his captors and of a society that tried to ignore what was happening. A must read.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Siempre la misma pregunta, May 2, 2006

By 

Boom Fiend (North Carolina, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Prisoner Without a Name, Cell Without a Number (THE AMERICAS) (Paperback)

I won't give a synopsis of the book b/c everyone else has already done that for you. What I can say about this book is that it is an impetus. After you read it, you'll most likely be hungry for more information about this brutal time in a seemingly well-developed country. Questions to consider: Why the silence of the press, with the exception of Timerman's newspaper 'La Opinion' and the 'B.A. Herald?' How could someone treated so horribly come out of it okay? Why did this happen after Pinochet's regime and the Nazi regime? This is post WWII, so why? Where was the rest of the world? The book is splendid, the first chapter gut-wrenching and beautiful. You will love it as much as Elie Wiesel's 'Night.'