Born in 1970, Mohamedou Ould Slahi, the book’s author, is a Mauritian writer, human rights advocate, and engineer. He’s best known for his imprisonment at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp from 2002 until 2016, which became the subject of his best-selling book, The Mauritanian, initially released as Guantánamo Diary in 2015. Born in Rosso, Mauritania in 1970, Slahi studied in Germany on a scholarship and earned a degree in electrical engineering from the University of Duisburg. In 1990-1991, he joined the mujahideen in Afghanistan and trained in al-Qaeda camps for six weeks. Slahi’s cousin, Mahfouz Ould al-Walid, was an advisor to Osama bin Laden. Al-Walid eventually left al-Qaeda and advised bin Laden against attacking the US. Slahi sent money to al-Walid’s family, an act that was later used as evidence against him.

Slahi briefly lived in Canada between 1999 and 2000. During this time, the radar of US intelligence began to focus on him because he attended the same mosque as a man accused of terrorism in the Millennium Plot. On the way home to Mauritania, Slahi was arrested in Senegal because the US sought to question him.