Guantanamo: A Novel
A novel set against Guantanamo that calmly depicts the uncertainty and violence imposed on people whose names have been stripped away. It gradually reveals the pressure of political reality through a restrained style.
Work Information
How much of the self remains when a name is taken away?
By pursuing the distortions of contemporary politics in a restrained voice, the novel makes the outline of violence sharper. It leaves a strong impression both as translated literature and as a novel about institutional absurdity.
Review Summaries
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Readers value the way the novel shows institutional violence without over-asserting its argument. The heavy subject matter also leaves some readers feeling a degree of distance from the story.
Book Information
- Publisher
- Soft Skull Press
- Published
- 2007-03-28
- Pages
- 192 pages
- Language
- 英語
- Size
- 12.7 x 1.02 x 20.32 cm
- ISBN-13
- 9781933368542
- ISBN-10
- 9781933368542
- Price
- 3179 JPY
- Category
- 洋書/Literature & Fiction/Literary
At the beginning of the Afghan war, young Rashid, born in Hamburg to an Indian father and a German mother, travels to India to claim an inheritance. There, he befriends a young Afghan and continues his journey to Peshawar, where he ends up in the middle of an anti-American demonstration. He is arrested, handed over to the Americans, and taken to the notorious Guantanamo. What ensues is a remarkable literary experiment, a novel based on meticulous research. In six scenes, it describes Rashid’s life at the camp. Sensitive yet utterly unsentimental, the novel explores the existential consequences of isolation, suppression, and uncertainty paralyzing fear, psychotic delusions, manic identification with fellow prisoners, and ultimately, resignation. Written with fierce moral clarity and a remarkable economy of expression, Guantanamo functions as both a political statement and a fascinating examination of the prisoner/jailer relationship.
Dorothea Dieckmann is an award-winning author from Germany. Her first novel to be translated into English is Guantanamo , which won the Best Translated Book Award. Tim Mohr is a New York-based translator, writer, and editor.