A primary theme in The Mauritanian is the depersonalization and dehumanization of prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp (as occurs in most prisons to varying degrees). “Depersonalization” refers to the erasure of detainees’ individual traits. “Dehumanization” is a broader term that signals the treatment of detainees as less than human and ranges from human rights abuses to war crimes. Every chapter in the book features examples of both. In some cases, depersonalization and dehumanization overlap.

During the author’s detention at Guantanamo, depersonalization took several forms. Some were obvious, such as wearing the orange prison jumpsuit, being called by a number (760 in the author’s case), and living in a highly structured detention-camp community. The detainees were essentially “disappeared.” Their names, nationalities, and location at Guantanamo were unknown to the outside world until Associated Press v. US Department of Defense, in which the Associated Press sought this data starting in 2004 through the Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA (Associated Press v. US Department of Defense, 410 F. Supp. 2d 147 [S.D.N.Y. 2006]). The detainees—who were deliberately placed into legal limbo and held indefinitely without being charged—were denied the ability to engage in hobbies, practice their faith, or contact their families like the convicted felons in a regular prison.