Zeitoun

It's been months since I've added anything new to this blog's category of recommended books.  Zeitoun is not a new book, but I only recently became aware of it, and then it took a while to get it from the library.

The book tells the story of Abdulrahman Zeitoun, a Syrian-born American living and working in New Orleans at the time of the Katrina hurricane.  He stayed behind to take care of his property, that of his neighbors, and some that he managed.  The part of the book about surviving the hurricane is pretty standard disaster narrative; what's actually important is what happened next.  He was inside his own home when military personnel arrested him on a (wrongful) presumption that he was a looter.  That mistake is perhaps understandable, given the circumstances, but what followed is outrageous.  He was incarcerated in a temporary prison, then transferred to a Federal maximum security prison without  ever having an opportunity to contact an attorney or even make a single phone call to notify his wife that he was alive.  For two weeks he was kept isolated and denied the basic human rights normally accorded to an American citizen.

You will know whether or not this book would be of interest to you.  It's a easy read in terms of language and narrative, but difficult to read because of the disturbing content.

Here are the Amazon reviews, most of which are 5-star, and a link to the Zeitoun Foundation.