This multilayered work follows a group of Guantanamo detainees from a single Middle Eastern country, Kuwait, portraying their lives before their capture, to their experience at Guantanamo, to their ultimate release and the lives they have been challenged in remaking after returning home. It is an intimate look at real men held for years without charge and without hope. Eric L. Lewis has represented Guantanamo detainees for more than twenty years and he conducted the hearings that gained the release of the last two Kuwaiti 'forever prisoners.' As part of a committed team, he spent time with these men and their families, fighting to gain access to courts and navigating the politics and diplomacy of the Global War on Terror. As well as telling the story of his time with the Guantanamo detainees, Lewis also analyzes how Guantanamo has changed American law and culture, and how its legacy continues today.

‘Eric Lewis makes sure that we don’t miss the history lessons of Guantanamo, which remain as urgent as ever. More than that, he tells the stories of the real people at Guantanamo, readable parables that show how the U.S. went terribly astray and took us to a new, and frightening, paradigm.’

Clive Stafford Smith - OBE and Founder of Reprieve

‘In the wake of 9/11, American policymakers instituted a ‘war on terror,’ a misbegotten initiative and national psychology that led to many grave injustices. Eric Lewis, a distinguished Washington attorney and human rights advocate, has immersed himself for more than two decades in the work of defending men who, in the hysteria of the period, were unjustly swept up by American forces and taken to Guantanamo where they languished for years as ‘forever prisoners.’ Lewis’s brilliant narrative is like one of Kafka’s last manuscripts: haunted, chilling, precise. That it all ends for his clients after such prolonged struggle is, despite the author’s modesty, a tribute not only to the endurance of these men but to their rigorous defender, the teller of the tale.’

David Remnick - author of Lenin’s Tomb

‘An eloquent, deeply informed and inspiring account of how twelve Kuwaiti suspects were wrongly accused, detained without trial, tortured and denied all effective review in the legal black hole of Guantanamo; and how they bravely survived and fought back with the help of a brilliant team of advocates in Kuwait and the US. In this enthralling book Eric Lewis tells their story but profoundly sets it in the wider political and legal context of the increasing, and brazen abandonment of the international rule of law, and the principles of humanity.’

Edward Fitzgerald KC - human rights barrister and founding head of Doughty Street Chambers

‘Eric Lewis is a legendary human rights lawyer who combines idealism with tremendous effectiveness. He tells the riveting tale of twelve Kuwaiti men finding their way home from the black hole of Guantanamo with crucial support from dedicated champions of justice and the rule of law. It is a vitally important story for our time.’

Cliff Sloan - former Special Envoy for Guantanamo Closure

‘This is a vital and timely book. In an era when legal protections and human rights are under assault from authoritarians using the ‘war on terror’ playbook, there is no better qualified guide and practitioner than Eric Lewis. Leaving Guantánamo is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand how we got here and how to fight back. It is a moving chronicle of friendship, a manual for resistance, and offers hope that the current attacks on freedom can be weathered and, eventually, overcome.’

Maya Foa - CEO of Reprieve