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.