Jeremy Harding presents Guantánamo Kid: Jérôme Tubiana & Alexandre Franc

Mohammed El-Gharani was just a teenager when he left his native country, Saudi Arabia, in order to study English in Pakistan. Shortly after 9/11, he was detained during a raid on his local mosque and taken into the custody of the US army. He was flown first to Kandahar and then to Guantánamo Bay, where he was held and abused for seven years without charge or trial. El-Gharani was one of the youngest prisoners at the camp, and one of the few detainees of African descent.

The journalist and researcher Jérôme Tubiana first told El-Gharani’s story in a Diary piece for the London Review of Books in 2011. In Guantánamo Kid, a collaboration with the comics artist Alexandre Franc, he translates this shocking and important story into graphic novel form.

Jérôme Tubiana and Alexandre Franc were in conversation with Jeremy Harding, a contributing editor at the LRB. Harding has written extensively for the paper on literature, politics, immigration, the War on Terror and on Guantánamo itself.