Don't Forget Us Here

Lost and Found at Guantanamo

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About this listen

This moving, eye-opening memoir of an innocent man detained at Guantánamo Bay for fifteen years tells a story of humanity in the unlikeliest of places and an unprecedented look at life at Guantánamo.

At the age of 18, Mansoor Adayfi left his home in Yemen for a cultural mission to Afghanistan. He never returned. Kidnapped by warlords and then sold to the US after 9/11, he was disappeared to Guantánamo Bay, where he spent the next 14 years as Detainee #441.
Don't Forget Us Here tells two coming-of-age stories in parallel: a makeshift island outpost becoming the world's most notorious prison and an innocent young man emerging from its darkness. Arriving as a stubborn teenager, Mansoor survived the camp's infamous interrogation program and became a feared and hardened resistance fighter leading prison riots and hunger strikes. With time though, he grew into the man nicknamed "Smiley Troublemaker": a student, writer, advocate, and historian. While at Guantánamo, he wrote a series of manuscripts he sent as letters to his attorneys, which he then transformed into this vital chronicle, in collaboration with award-winning writer Antonio Aiello. With unexpected warmth and empathy, Mansoor unwinds a narrative of fighting for hope and survival in unimaginable circumstances, illuminating the limitlessness of the human spirit. And through his own story, he also tells Guantánamo's story, offering an unprecedented window into one of the most secretive places on earth and the people—detainees and guards alike—who lived there with him. Twenty years after 9/11, Guantánamo remains open, and at a moment of due reckoning, Mansoor Adayfi helps us understand what actually happened there—both the horror and the beauty—a stunning record of an experience we cannot afford to forget.

Mansoor AdayfiRoxanna Hope RadjaMansoor AdayfiGrand Central Publishing

Americas

Freedom & Security

Politics & Government

United States

Human Rights

Middle East

Americas Freedom & Security Politics & Government United States Human Rights Middle East

Critic reviews

"In this landmark work, Mansoor Adayfi gives us a guided tour through the nightmarish landscape of Guantánamo. 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 Don't Forget Us Here will spark a long overdue reckoning with the horrors of Guantánamo 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."
—Azar Nafisi, bestselling author of Reading Lolita in Tehran

"Powerful…An important record of prisoner mistreatment as a national reckoning over Guantánamo continues to loom."—Kirkus (starred review)

"Searing...This poignant testament strikes a devastating chord."—Publishers Weekly

"Mansoor’s plight is unfathomable, but his strength most certainly is enviable. His powerful, unforgettable story is a must read in every way."—Booklist

"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 Guantanamo prison camp."—Francine Prose, bestselling author of Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932

"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 14 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 Guantánamo's prisoners to assert their humanity, turns the official story about these men on its head, and shows Guantánamo for what it is: a terrible shame and a pointless failure."—Mohamedou Ould Slahi, bestselling author of Guantánamo Diary

Most relevant

The book is presented brilliantly by a female actor (reason given at the start)
The story is intriguing, upsetting, distressing and at times heartbreaking. There is the odd funny moment to relieve the tension of the story. I cannot recommend this highly enough, but be prepared to question who the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ guys are.