Guantanamo

Dorothea Dieckmann is an award-winning author from Germany. Her first novel to be translated into English is Guantanamo, which won the Best Translated Book Award.

At the beginning of the Afghan war, young Rashid, born in Hamburg to an Indian father and a German mother, travels to India to claim an inheritance. There, he befriends a young Afghan and continues his journey to Peshawar, where he ends up in the middle of an anti-American demonstration. He is arrested, handed over to the Americans, and taken to the notorious Guantanamo.What ensues is a remarkable literary experiment, a novel based on meticulous research. In six scenes, it describes Rashid's life at the camp. Sensitive yet utterly unsentimental, the novel explores the existential consequences of isolation, suppression, and uncertainty -- paralyzing fear, psychotic delusions, manic identification with fellow prisoners, and ultimately, resignation. Written with fierce moral clarity and a remarkable economy of expression, "Guantanamo" functions as both a political statement and a fascinating examination of the prisoner/jailer relationship.