Mansoor Adayfi - Dont Forget Us Here: Lost and Found at Guantanamo

In this landmark work, Mansoor Adayfi gives us a guided tour through the nightmarish landscape of Guantnamo. He tells a tale of both casual cruelty and organized sadism that should make every American politician redden with shame. But this memoir offers much more than just a gruesome portrait of a bureaucracy gone berserk, for it describes the fierce resistance and ultimate redemption of an innocent Yemeni man consigned to a hellish prison. Let us hope that Dont Forget Us Here will spark a long overdue reckoning with the horrors of Guantnamo and its many victims.

Ron Chernow, former president of PEN America and bestselling author of Grant and Hamilton

This is a wholly enthralling, relentlessly enraging, and unexpectedly funny book about one man caught in the absurdist world of the War on Terror. With his mordant wit and astonishing perseverance, Mansoor is impossible not to root for. This is a contemporary Unbroken with vital lessons for the American military-intelligence complex, exposing how an ostensibly moral nation becomes a state sponsor of torture.

Dave Eggers, Pulitzer Prize finalist and winner of the Dayton Literary Peace Prize

An incredible story! I am grateful to this joyously heartbreaking book for reminding me of what it means to be not just human, but humane. Once we read his story, we too must become committed, held accountable and responsible for what happened in Guantnamo, what is still happening, and what might happen in the future.

Azar Nafisi, bestselling author of Reading Lolita in Tehran

Dont Forget Us Here is a profoundly moving and immensely important tribute to the intelligence, resilience, and humanity with which its author, Mansoor Adayfi, survived fourteen years as a detainee in the notorious Guantnamo prison camp.

Francine Prose, former president of PEN America and bestselling author of Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932

This book takes us inside the tenacious mind of a remarkable young man who refused to be broken by ritualized mental and physical torture. Through acts of courageous resistance and unbounding faith, he holds on to his dignity. His ritual of writing to make his case would become this important record, opening a window of stunning humanity into a place meant to be kept forever secret.

Melissa Fleming, UN Under-Secretary-General for Global Communications and author of A Hope More Powerful than the Sea

After years of hearing and reading only the official version of his story, as told by his captors, at last Mansoor himself speaks. Speaking at all after such experiences, which included fourteen years of the most serious human rights violations and daily humiliations designed to break the human spirit, is a victory. Speaking as Mansoor does here, of the struggle of Guantnamos prisoners to assert their humanity, turns the official story about these men on its head, and shows Guantnamo for what it is: a terrible shame and a pointless failure.

Mohamedou Ould Slahi, bestselling author of Guantnamo Diary

A blistering, eloquent indictment of Guantnamo. Mansoor Adayfi vividly describes the abuses committed there, and he writes powerfully about the decade and half he spent there.

Peter Bergen, bestselling author of Manhunt and The Rise and Fall of Osama bin Laden

Mansoor Adayfis Dont Forget Us Here may be one of the most shocking books youll ever read, but not for the reasons you might expect. The relentless torture that Adayfi receives at Guantnamo Bay, recounted in excruciating detail, will shock your conscience, as will the horrifying fact that Adayfi was held without charge by the US government for more than fourteen years, losing his entire twenties in the process. But whats most shocking about this extraordinary book is Adayfis enormous capacity to resist his captors with uncommon creativity, dignity, and even humor. Dont Forget Us Here shows us how the gulag at Guantnamo, designed to deprive hundreds of Muslim men of everything they once held dear, ultimately stripped the jailersand not the inmatesof their own humanity.

Moustafa Bayoumi, author of How Does It Feel to Be a Problem?: Being Young and Arab in America

Unforgettable a riveting, illuminating account of Guantnamo from a Muslim perspective.

Jonathan Hansen, author of Guantnamo: An American History

HAZEL AIELLO

A NTONIO A IELLO is a writer, editor, and storyteller. For many years, he was the content and editorial director of PEN America. Most recently, he was a Sundance Institute fellow in the Episodic TV Lab. He lives in Montclair, New Jersey, with his wife and children.

Guantnamo, 2015

Copyright 2021 by Mansoor Adayfi

Cover design by Terri Sirma

Cover images: Textures HorenkO/Shutterstock, MM_photos/Shutterstock

Cover copyright 2021 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.

Maps Flyleaf Creative

Portions of this book were originally published, in different form, in the New York Times.

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First Edition: August 2021

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Adayfi, Mansoor, author. | Aiello, Antonio, editor.

Title: Dont forget us here : lost and found at Guantnamo / Mansoor Adayfi; edited by Antonio Aiello.

Description: First edition. | New York : Hachette Books, [2021]

Identifiers: LCCN 2021006356 | ISBN 9780306923869 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780306923876 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Adayfi, MansoorImprisonment. | Guantnamo Bay Detention CampBiography. | Detention of personsCubaGuantnamo Bay Naval Base. | Prisoners of warAbuse ofCubaGuantnamo Bay Naval Base. |Prisoners of warCivil rightsCubaGuantnamo Bay Naval Base. | War on terrorism, 20012009Prisoners and prisons, American.