Author Archives: Esther Whitfield

About Esther Whitfield

Esther Whitfield is Associate Professor of Comparative Literature and Hispanic Studies at Brown University. She is author of Cuban Currency: The Dollar and "Special Period" Fiction (University of Minnesota Press, 2008) and co-editor, with Anke Birkenmaier, of a collection of essays on post-1989 Havana, Havana Beyond the Ruins (2011). She has published articles on literary writing in post-Soviet Cuba; Welsh-language writing in Patagonia; and borders, visibility, and surveillance at the Guantánamo naval base. Her current work focuses on representations of Guantánamo in art, literature, and law.

From Guantánamo to the Global South: Mohammed el-Gharani in Literature and Art

Abstract: This article discusses a poem, a performance, and a comic book related to the life of Mohammed el-Gharani, a Black Muslim citizen of Chad held at Guantánamo for seven years beginning at the age of fourteen. It argues that while the fragmented authorship and dispersal of these creative pieces distinguishes them from a more established corpus of detainee memoirs, they perform important work alongside this corpus in highlighting solidarities between detainees and residents of Cuba, on the one hand, and Black members of the Continue reading → Continue reading →