Joshua Colangelo-Bryan launches "Through the Gates of Hell"

Author Joshua Colangelo-Bryan will be joined by New Yorker staff writer Jonathan Blitzer for a reading, conversation, and reception.

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“We’ll be watching,” the sergeant said, pointing at a video monitor inside Camp Echo’s guard booth. “For your protection.”
In 2004, attorney Joshua Colangelo-Bryan arrived at Guantanamo Bay to meet Jaber Mohammed, one of six Bahraini detainees his firm had agreed to represent. Colangelo-Bryan had heard these men were “among the most dangerous, best-trained, vicious killers on the face of the earth,” as Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld put it. Colangelo-Bryan didn’t buy the rhetoric, but did find himself wondering if he was about to meet a killer.
Far from being threatening, though, Mohammed welcomed Colangelo-Bryan, even as his ankle was shackled to the floor. Why was Mohammed there? Was he guilty of a crime? These were among the questions Colangelo-Bryan had to answer. Surprisingly, the two spoke for hours about their lives. Mohammed also detailed the inhumane conditions at the Pr*son, including abuse by guards and solitary confinement.
A friendship grew over time, as Colangelo-Bryan worked to bring justice to Mohammed. The Bush administration claimed any “enemy combatant” could be held in Guantanamo forever without a trial, and it became clear that litigation was unlikely to free the Bahrainis. And so, as Mohammed lost hope, Colangelo-Bryan devised a plan to leverage the media and pressure the Bahraini government to negotiate for the release of its citizens. Colangelo- Bryan’s long fight for the Bahrainis was ultimately successful, and in 2007, after several suicide attempts, Mohammed was freed.
Through the Gates of Hell is a powerful account of an unlikely friendship and what it takes to fight for human rights in the post–9/11 era.

Advanced Praise for Through the Gates of Hell

“Joshua Colangelo-Bryan’s Through the Gates of Hell speaks with great open-heartedness and compassion about some of the victims of the American injustice in the first decade of this century, but it’s also extremely relevant to where we find ourselves now. These pages are not only deeply moving but urgently necessary.” —Rick Moody, author of Hotels of North America and The Long Accomplishment

“The brutality of Guantanamo detention and the labyrinthine US legal system stacked against detainees make the relationship between a New York lawyer and a Guantanamo detainee inherently fraught. Joshua Colangelo-Bryan describes with touching sensitiv­ity and humility the process of building trust and ultimately a friendship. The close relationship motivates his relentless and creative quest to free his client. A powerful lesson in empathetic, strategic lawyering.” —Kenneth Roth, former executive director of Human Rights Watch; author of Righting Wrongs: Three Decades on the Front Lines Battling Abusive Governments

“Wary, skeptical, with his own backstory of upheaval, a young attorney returns again and again to the infamous Guantanamo Bay detention camp where the ‘vicious killers’ he represents are held without charges and have little hope of due process. It is a tale not only of soul-crushing circumstances with catch-22-like protocols but also of perse­verance, ingenuity, humor, and ultimately friendship. Be prepared to lose sleep with this tightly written, unexpectedly moving page-turner!” —Juliette Fay, bestselling author of The Half of It and The Tumbling Turner Sisters

Joshua Colangelo-Bryan is Special Counsel at Human Rights First, where he spearheads impact litigation and advocacy efforts to uphold democratic principles and support defenders of human rights. Beyond representing Guantanamo detainees, he has sued Turkey for assaulting protestors in Washington, D.C., the Trump administration for attempting to deport a college student based on protest activity, and a U.S. pastor who fomented legislation in Uganda criminalizing the LGBTQI community. Josh has conducted human-rights investigations in countries such as Yemen, Syria, and Bahrain. He also served with the United Nations Mission in Kosovo.

Jonathan Blitzer is a staff writer at The New Yorker, and the author of Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here: The United States, Central America, and the Making of a Crisis, which was named one of the ten best books of 2024 by the New York Times. It also received the 2025 Hillman Prize for Book Journalism and the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award.

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