From the Publisher
“This is a very satisfying collection for those of us who default to thinking of Guantánamo as just a carceral space. Full of provocative forays into history, criticism, poetry, and intertextual analysis, the book reveals some of the extraordinary cultural context in which our extralegal prison resides. The pieces remind me of the waves described by my clients in their poetry from the prison—insistent, mesmerizing, strange. Their effect is cumulative, and begin to make Guantánamo an intellectually more visible place.” (Mark Falkoff, Professor of Law at Northern Illinois University, USA)
“Even as the post-9/11 war on terror has shifted critiques of U.S. foreign policy away from the Americas, Guantánamo and American Empire reminds us of the ongoing centrality of the Caribbean to understanding the past and present of U.S. imperialism. The book offers important and original perspectives from scholars and artists in the United States, Cuba, and other parts of the Caribbean. The result is a powerful portrait of how asylum seekers and refugees, enemy combatants and those labeled as terrorists, and even everyday Caribbean people, all become the enemies of the state that Guantánamo exists to contain and exclude. Focusing on Guantánamo shows how violence and subjugation remain at the center of U.S. Empire.” (Raphael Dalleo, author of American Imperialism's Undead: The Occupation of Haiti and the Rise of Caribbean Anticolonialism, 2016, USA)
“I will hereafter think and feel differently (and more deeply) on hearing that sonorous and evocative name, "Guantánamo," thanks to reading this book. This engagingly varied volume combines genres of historical and anthropological analysis, media and cultural studies, testimonial, polemic, poetry and interview to shine the bright light of nuance on a subject so obscured by dense layers of propaganda and symbolic invocation as to have almost entirely disappeared from view as an actual place. In illuminating the many uses and abuses of Guantánamo through close and clear-eyed attention to lived experiences as well as the historical record, it offers itself as an excellent example of the power of advocacy inherent in Humanities research, its capacity to intervene in radical and distinctive ways in political debates ... .” (Ian Craig, Senior Lecturer in Spanish, University of the West Indies at Cave Hill, Barbados)