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FIVE YEARS OF MY LIFE -- AN INNOCENT MAN IN GUANTANAMO |
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TRANSLATOR'S NOTE DESPITE BEING BORN IN GERMANY AND HAVING LIVED his whole life there, Murat Kurnaz was not a German citizen at time of his detention in Guantanamo. German citizenship law is based primarily on ethnicity and family relation. Thus, the descendents of the numerous Turkish immigrants who worked to help rebuild postwar Germany, though born in the country, are not automatically issued German passports. Since obtaining German citizenship is a complicated process -- and residence permits entitle holders to most of the rights afforded by the state to citizens -- many "foreigners" in Germany simply opt to live as permanent resident aliens. Kurnaz wrote this account of his years in Guantanamo in conjunction with a German journalist named Helmut Kuhn, who helped him shape his story into a narrative. I have chosen to omit some typical German narrative techniques -- chiefly transitions from the narrative past to the present tense to build tension -- from this translation. These techniques are unfamiliar in English and would, I felt, only have created confusion. The issue of how to translate the Koran is highly contentious, as there is no standard English rendering of the book. I have tried to convey the sense of the Koranic quotations and other religious material in this book as neutrally as possible and would ask for readers' indulgence of any infelicities. JEFFERSON CHASE
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