Become a Rumpus Member
Join NOW!Prisoners held at Guantánamo Bay have access to 18,000 books in 18 different languages, including Arabic translations of King Lear, Anna Karenina, and Stephen King thrillers. But books deemed critical of the US government, including Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Noam Chomsky’s Interventions, and various John Grisham novels, are banned. Over at The Kenyon […]
...moreAfter partial redaction and six years of legal battles, Guantanamo Diary is now the first-ever published book by a current Guantanamo detainee. Mohamedou Ould Slahi has been imprisoned there since 2002, and his memoir details his thirteen years of confinement and torture. The Guardian has excerpts and a moving short documentary about Slahi and the […]
...moreMobyLives reports that British prisons have banned books sent as gifts, a right even allowed in notorious Guantanamo Bay. Many British authors have criticized the new policy—an online petition has collected more than 20,000 signatures. Even prison staff seem to think the policy is a bad idea. Prison Minister Jeremy Wright has defended the decision, saying […]
...morePart manifesto, part immigrant love story, part satire, part tragedy, Gilvarry’s debut novel is as moving as it is full of barely controlled anger, a tension that makes this well-written novel eminently readable.
...moreFilled with a slew of social critiques and riffs on popular Muslim and American iconography, Cihan Kaan’s first collection of short stories, Halal Pork, is decidedly Muslim-American but also conflicted, negotiating the space between assimilation into American society and the rules of tradition.
...more“One in four Americans is employed to protect the rich.” Here’s an underreported story: Dominicans are coming to the aid of Haitians, despite a less-than-idyllic history between the two countries. VICE is taking a ton of heat for its treatment of Liberia in “The Vice Guide to Liberia.” A very cool looking architectural installation that […]
...more