Product Description

The harrowing story of one family's fight to free their daughter from a Peruvian prison.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1345804 in Books
• Published on: 2001-11-29
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 279 pages

From Publishers Weekly
The grueling experiences described by Berenson constitute a crash course in the arbitrary horrors of human rights abuses. Since December 1995, 30-year-old Lori Berenson, an American citizen from New York, has been imprisonedDin appalling conditionsDin Peru. She was found guilty of treason for allegedly conspiring to attack the Peruvian Congress as a member of the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement and sentenced to life imprisonment by a hooded military tribunal who refused to allow her attorney to present evidence or question witnesses. This dramatic and engrossing account by Lori's mother details the long struggle she and her husband, Mark, have endured in trying to get their daughter's sentence overturned. Both of them have given up their academic careers to dedicate their full-time efforts to a campaign to free Lori. Berenson forcefully argues that Lori was not a terrorist but a journalist, with valid press credentials, who had written about social and economic injustice in Peru. Just last month, Lori's conviction was in fact overturned, and she was granted a civilian trial. Because political conditions are now so unstable in Peru (President Fujimori is stepping down because of a scandal), her fate is uncertain, but her parents are hoping that she will be released. (Nov. 1)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Berenson recalls the nearly five-year-old and continuing nightmare that began with a phone call announcing the arrest of her daughter, Lori, in December 1995, in Peru on charges of treason and terrorism. Lori was in Peru as a human-rights activist and journalist. The Berensons, both university professors, launched an ongoing campaign that has engaged major news organizations, human-rights advocacy groups, and prominent politicians to secure the release of their daughter, who has never been tried. But the "Kafka-like military tribunals" of Peru, the high-profile political investment of President Fujimori in the imprisonment of the "gringa terrorist," and a decided lack of interest by the U.S. State Department have stretched the agonizing period even beyond the turmoil of the recent presidential election. Berenson's book is a harrowing account of the repressive politics of a nation that remains in the headlines today and is a story of hope, determination, and endurance in the face of global politics. Vanessa Bush
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review
"Illuminating and powerful, everyone who cares about human rights and decency will want to read Rhoda Berenson's superb book." -- Blanche Wiesen Cook, author of Eleanor Roosevelt, 1884-1933

"Rhoda Berenson's powerful book offers a vivid account of an American nightmare." -- Robert K. Massie, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Peter the Great

Customer Reviews

Lori, Angry Activist, Rhoda, Imprisoned Mother
This is a very strange memoir of a mother obsessed with her daughter's imprisonment in a faraway land for alleged terrorist activities. I don't know whether she committed these acts but the photograph of Lori on the cover of the book makes me wonder: Who is Lori? In any event, she looks like a sadist, not a human rights activist. Rhoda spends the entire book complaining about injustices, with a capital I--and her plane trips to Peru.

A Mother's Feeble Defense
I read this book a few years after hearing about Lori's imprisonment in Peru and subsequent appeals for justice. I found the book seriously lacking in objectivity,and blatantly polemical in its awkward defense of Lori's bizarre behavior and misplaced good intentions. The author glosses over what seem to me to be the basic questions in this case--such as, why was Lori living in a house full of guns, ammunition, and terrorist operatives? Why was the U.S. ambassador to Peru so critical of her case? Why are so many congressmen unwilling to support her appeals? Why are human rights organizations uninterested in her case?

The author seems enthralled by her daughter's personality, intelligence, tenacity, motivation. Her fixation on Lori's "specialness" apparently began prenatal. An example of this daughter worship is an embarrassing comment about an embassy official's pro forma visit with Lori and Mrs. Berenson's jealousy that a near stranger could bask in Lori's charm and wit!

The final pages of the book consists of long and undigested quotes from Lori's judicial appeal. There is no analysis, just Lori's long, unbroken soliloquy.

Biased
Lori went to Peru to join a terrorist group, planned a plot to assault the congress of Peru. In her new trial, a due process and lead by a civil prosecutor, the Peruvian Supreme Court probed that she participated actively in the design of the frustrated Congress' assault.
Moreover, Lori lived togheter with the top leaders of the terrorist group for more than a year. In fact, MRTA was a terrorist group that claimed the USA as an imperialist and evil power.
Although Lori decided to walk a path that did not recognized democratic values and human rights, supporting an armed and communist revolution in Peru, when she was indicted she decided to claim that her human rights were not respected.
The book is fully biased, aimed to attack the Peruvian Judicial System and, at the same time, to avoid the most important, what is the facts about Lori's plans in Peru. Obviously, a book wrotte by a mother.