The Memoir-Activism Circuit: The Afterlives of Guantánamo Diary in Cultural Memory

Mohamedou Ould Slahi’s internationally celebrated memoir, Guantánamo Diary (2015), written while he was still imprisoned without charge, has been described as the ‘true witness’ of Guantánamo. Translated into multiple languages, it has featured in activist campaigns and has inspired readings, films, podcasts, plays, and panel discussions. As such, the memoir and its remediations have been vital in the remembrance of both everyday life and torture and terror at America’s most infamous post-9/11 prison. To explore the afterlives of Guantánamo Diary, I introduce the memoir-activism circuit, which builds on insights from cultural and collective memory studies and life writing studies, especially intersections of testimony, witnessing, and human rights. To map the remediations of the memoir, its uptake in activism, and the significance of these in the cultural remembrance of Guantánamo, I identify four stages in the circuit: (1) pre-publication memoir advocacy (contesting government secrecy); (2) memoir advocacy (memoir as a medium for making a case); (3) memoir activism (promoting the memoir to seed activism for a cause); (4) memoir in cultural and collective memory (remediating memoir in new cultural forms which may facilitate new cycles of remembrance, remediation, and activism). While these stages will not all be present in other cases of memoir activism, my hope is that this framework will serve as an analytic tool for mapping the place of the literary—and specifically memoir—in both short-term memory activism and longer-term cultural memory, and for tracing the dynamics of memory and forgetting over time.