Guantanamo - Softcover

Poetry. Literary Nonfiction. Middle Eastern Studies. Bilingual Edition. Translated from the French by Vanessa Place. In January 2006, responding to pressure from the American press, the Department of Defense released three hundred and seventeen verbal trials from Guantanamo naval base, the prison camp used to house accused terrorists. From these documents comes GUANTANAMO by Frank Smith. Appropriating language from the interrogation minutes, Smith shapes these questions and answers into a literary world as faceless and recursive as the interrogations themselves, leading us away from the comfort of reason and the hope of resolution. In this bilingual edition, translated into English by Vanessa Place, GUANTANAMO unsettles the categories of law and poetry, innocence and guilt, translation and interpretation.

Frank Smith is a French journalist, nonfiction writer, and author of multiple books of poetry including the recent collections Guantanamo (Seuil, Coll. 2010), Etats de faits (l'Attente Editions, 2013), and Gaza, d'ici-la (Al Dante Editions, 2013). He has worked as a producer for France Culture since 1999 where, after collaborating to create the programs Surpris par la nuit and Surpris par la poesie with Alain Veinstein, he codirected l'Atelier de creation radiophonique for ten years. He also heads the book/CD collection "ZagZig," that he founded with Dis Voir, a publishing house, and contributes to L'Impossible/L'autre journal (led by Michel Butel).