Abstract: In this essay, Mohamedou Ould Slahi reflects on how fifteen years of indefinite detention, torture, and abuse in the war on terror contributed to his development as a writer. He discusses the ways in which solitary confinement and other rules governing his captivity in a prison in Jordan and for fourteen years at Guantánamo forced him to keenly observe his surroundings and to conjure characters and stories from the smallest of details in his material life, from the most mundane interactions with guards, interrogators, and other prison personnel, and from dreams. Stitching these bits into narrative came about through listening to guards and other detainees tell their stories and from consuming approved television and film, often alongside the guards. For the author, writing both fiction and nonfiction provided an outlet for mental torment, but also created intense feelings of freedom, of imaginative life beyond cell walls. At the same time, he reflects on his role as a writer who survived Guantánamo as one of obligation to the memory of the many other young men who were disappeared and sometimes killed in the war on terror.
This content is restricted to site members. If you are an existing user, please login. New users may click here to subscribe.
Current Issue
The latest issue of Humanity is out! Its special dossier interrogates recent humanitarian laws on the protection of healthcare workers, with essays examining various histories of attacks on healthcare in the long twentieth century. The issue also includes essays on a new politics of care as an alternative political framework to that of human rights; Carl Schmitt’s tenets of international law; and Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s racial and cultural ideas on political economy.
View entire issue >
Save
Save
Save
📘'Choose Your Bearing: Édouard Glissant, Human Rights and Decolonial Ethics' is now available for pre-order!
❕Grab your copy and save 30% OFF using the code NEW30 at checkout : https://edin.ac/3JIcRne
@HumanityJ
Login Status
If you are not a subscriber, you can sign up now.