Guantanamo Voices: True Accounts from the World's Most Infamous Prison

by Sarah Mirk, Various (Illustrator), Omar El Akkad (Introduction)

Overview

Guantánamo Voices is a graphic novel anthology of illustrated narratives about the prison and the lives it changed forever.

Introduction by Omar El Akkad

In January 2002, the United States sent a group of Muslim men they suspected of terrorism to a prison in Guantánamo Bay. They were the first of roughly 780 prisoners who would be held there—and 40 inmates still remain. More than 20 years later, very few of them have been ever charged with a crime.

In Guantánamo Voices, journalist Sarah Mirk and her team of diverse, talented graphic novel artists tell the stories of 10 people whose lives have been shaped and affected by the prison, including former prisoners, lawyers, social workers, and service members. This collection of illustrated interviews explores the history of Guantánamo and the world post-9/11, presenting this complicated partisan issue through a new lens.

“Moving details emerge, as when one detainee narrates his relationship with an iguana, along with profound frustration; in the words of one attorney, ‘The law is a joke.’ The island colors and collection of styles make for a surprisingly artful book.” —New York Times Book Review

“An eye-opening, damning indictment of one of America’s worst trespasses that continues to this day.” —Kirkus Reviews

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781419746901
Publisher:	Abrams ComicArts
Publication date:	09/08/2020
Pages:	208
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.20(d)
Age Range:	16 - 18 Years

About the Author

Sarah Mirk is a multimedia journalist whose work focuses on telling nuanced, human-focused stories. She is an editor of The Nib and the former online editor of national feminism and pop-culture magazine Bitch Media. She lives in Portland, Oregon.

Editorial Reviews

07/06/2020

Mirk (Open Earth) teams up with more than a dozen talented artists to present these wrenching illustrated oral histories, which function eloquently as “an antidote to forgetting,” as reporter Omar El Akkad writes in his introduction. Each piece is based on original interviews with individuals who spent time at the Guantanamo Bay prison, among them ex-prisoners, service members, and a former chief of Middle East counterintelligence. Their stories form a damning mosaic of a Kafkaesque facility that was built on non-U.S. soil in order to circumvent federal laws guaranteeing the right of prisoners to free trials, thereby trapping them in years of imprisonment, some with no formal charges ever laid against them. Aside from the brutal conditions and torture described by ex-prisoners such as Moazzam Begg, testimony is given from lawyers like Matthew Diaz, who blew the whistle on the human rights abuses occurring—and subsequently had his career destroyed. Though the artistic styles vary, ranging from the expressionistic linework of Omar Khouri to the immediately charming comics of Kane Lynch, the warm color palette designed by Kazimir Lee unifies the collection while helping the heavy subject matter stay measurably more approachable. This anthology disturbs and illuminates in equal measure. Agent: Fiona Kenshole, Transatlantic Agency. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

“Moving details emerge, as when one detainee narrates his relationship with an iguana, along with profound frustration; in the words of one attorney, “The law is a joke.” The island colors and collection of styles make for a surprisingly artful book.

The New York Times Book Review

“The influences of Chris Ware, the Hernandez brothers and Moebius can be seen in Guantánamo Voices, a narrative report on the complex legal maneuvering, bureaucratic banality and patriotic equivocation that helped to justify a wartime prison that still exists today.”

Shelf Awareness

…The prison is often a forgotten topic of recent American history; Guantanamo Voices’illustrated format does the difficult work of making these facts accessible to a broad audience, dispelling falsehoods in the process…

KQED

…exposes the surreal inhumanity and documents the humane attempts at justice-seeking for the so-called “detainees” in the “detention facility” known as Guantánamo.

Booklist

“Moving details emerge, as when one detainee narrates his relationship with an iguana, along with profound frustration; in the words of one attorney, “The law is a joke.” The island colors and collection of styles make for a surprisingly artful book.”—The New York Times Book Review

“…the warm color palette designed by Kazimir Lee unifies the collection while helping the heavy subject matter stay measurably more approachable. This anthology disturbs and illuminates in equal measure.”—Publishers Weekly

“An eye-opening, damning indictment of one of America’s worst trespasses that continues to this day.”—Kirkus Reviews

“…exposes the surreal inhumanity and documents the humane attempts at justice-seeking for the so-called “detainees” in the “detention facility” known as Guantánamo.”—Booklist

“…The prison is often a forgotten topic of recent American history; Guantanamo Voices’illustrated format does the difficult work of making these facts accessible to a broad audience, dispelling falsehoods in the process…”—KQED

“The influences of Chris Ware, the Hernandez brothers and Moebius can be seen in Guantánamo Voices, a narrative report on the complex legal maneuvering, bureaucratic banality and patriotic equivocation that helped to justify a wartime prison that still exists today.”

—Shelf Awareness

From the Publisher

★ 2020-06-12
A graphic depiction of the human rights disaster that is the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo.

In this collection, illustrated by a dozen or so imaginative artists, editor Mirk presents an extraordinary chronicle of the notorious prison, featuring first-person accounts by prisoners, guards, and other constituents that demonstrate the facility’s cruel reputation. Since 2002, by the editor’s count, Guantanamo has housed 780 prisoners; 40 remain to this day. Of the hundreds of prisoners, writes Mirk, “few have ever been charged with a crime.” Following a reporter’s introduction to the current status of the facility, the book cuts to observations by Mark Fallon, former chief of Middle East Counterintelligence for the Naval Criminal Investigation Service, and Matthew Diaz, a former Navy Judge Advocate, which explore not just the absurd discrepancies in the prison’s approach to discipline, but also the prevalence of torture. There are also the horrific stories of those considered prisoners of war: “You’re never going to see your family again. You could be facing execution by firing squad, lethal injection, or gas chamber.” We also hear from the attorneys trying to mete out some kind of justice for those unjustly imprisoned and the prosecutors trying to figure out how to try accused men who don’t technically exist in the American justice system. The sweetly illustrated chapter about prisoner Mansoor Adayfi depicts how the Yemeni-born prisoner bonded with the island’s wild animals during his 14-year stay: “She reminded me every week that I was still human and that life still had beauty,” he says of the iguana he named Princess. Adayfi was never charged with a crime. Perhaps the best summary comes from Katie Taylor, who coordinates the Life After Guantanamo project at the human rights organization Reprieve: “This prison is premised on false information.”

An eye-opening, damning indictment of one of America’s worst trespasses that continues to this day.

Kirkus Reviews