Prisoner without a Name, Cell without a Number

Winner of a 1982 Los Angeles Times Book Prize

Selected by the New York Times for "Books of the Century"

With a new introduction by Ilan Stavans and a new foreword by Arthur Miller.

Author Biography: Jacobo Timerman (1923-1999) was born in the Ukraine, moved with his family to Argentina in 1928, and was deported to Israel in 1980. He returned to Argentina in 1984. Founder of two Argentine weekly newsmagazines in the 1960s and a commentator on radio and television, he was best-known as the publisher and editor of the newspaper La Opinión from 1971 until his arrest in 1977. An outspoken champion of human rights and freedom of the press, he criticized all repressive governments and organizations, regardless of their political ideologies. His other books include The Longest War: Israel in Lebanon; Cuba: A Journey; and Chile: A Death in the South.

The unforgettable testament of an Argentinian newspaper publisher who was imprisoned and tortured by his government as a dissenter and a Jew.

Timmerman, an Argentine-Jewish journalist and newspaper editor whose preoccupations were corruption and anti-Semitism, published the habeas corpus to the Argentine courts by the families of the disappeared and was jailed on April 15, 1977, after 20 civilians under army orders stormed his apartment. This is Timmerman's chronicle of 30 months of torture and jail time spent primarily in a tiny, wet cell. The Argentine junta, under international pressure, finally set him free by exiling him in Israel. This work first appeared in English translation in 1981. Annotation c. Book News, Inc.,Portland, OR

Charles McGrath

....gripping in its human stories, not only of brutality but of courage and love. -- The New York Times Books of the Century

Jacobo Timerman (1923–1999) was born in the Ukraine, moved with his family to Argentina in 1928, and was deported to Israel in 1980. He returned to Argentina in 1984. Founder of two Argentine weekly newsmagazines in the 1960s and a commentator on radio and television, he was best-known as the publisher and editor of the newspaper La Opinión from 1971 until his arrest in 1977. An outspoken champion of human rights and freedom of the press, he criticized all repressive governments and organizations, regardless of their political ideologies. His other books include The Longest War: Israel in Lebanon; Cuba: A Journey; and Chile: A Death in the South.


“Luminous.”—Christopher Hitchens, The Atlantic