My Friends - by Hisham Matar

About the Book

"One evening, as a young boy growing up in Benghazi, Khaled hears a bizarre short story read aloud on the radio, about a man being eaten alive by a cat. Obsessed by the power of those words - and by their enigmatic author, Hosam Zawa - Khaled eventually embarks on a journey that will take him far from home, to pursue a life of the mind at the University of Edinburgh. There, thrust into an open society that is light years away from the world he knew in Libya, Khaled begins to change. He attends a protest against the Qaddafi regime in London, only to watch it explode in tragedy. In a flash, Khaled finds himself injured, clinging to life, an exile, unable to leave England, much less return to the country of his birth. To even tell his mother and father back home what he has done, on tapped phone lines, would jeopardize their safety. When a chance encounter in a hotel brings Khaled face to face with Hosam Zawa, the author of the fateful short story, he is subsumed into the deepest friendship of his life. It is a friendship that not only sustains him, but eventually forces him, as the Arab Spring erupts, to confront agonizing tensions between revolution and safety, family and exile, and how to define his own sense of self against those closest to him"--

Book Synopsis

NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST - LONGLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE - A "masterly" (The New York Times, Editors' Choice), "riveting" (The Atlantic) novel of friendship, family, and the unthinkable realities of exile, from the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Return

"A profound celebration of the sustaining power of friendship, of the ways we mold ourselves against the indentations of those few people whom fate presses against us."--The Washington Post

ONE OF THE WASHINGTON POST AND PUBLISHER WEEKLY'S TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR - A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New Yorker, The Boston Globe, Time, NPR, BookPage

WINNER OF THE ORWELL PRIZE FOR POLITICAL FICTION - WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD - LONGLISTED FOR THE ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDAL FOR EXCELLENCE IN FICTION

One evening, as a young boy growing up in Benghazi, Khaled hears a bizarre short story read aloud on the radio, about a man being eaten alive by a cat, and has the sense that his life has been changed forever. Obsessed by the power of those words--and by their enigmatic author, Hosam Zowa--Khaled eventually embarks on a journey that will take him far from home, to pursue a life of the mind at the University of Edinburgh.

There, thrust into an open society that is miles away from the world he knew in Libya, Khaled begins to change. He attends a protest against the Qaddafi regime in London, only to watch it explode into tragedy. In a flash, Khaled finds himself injured, clinging to life, unable to leave Britain, much less return to the country of his birth. To even tell his mother and father back home what he has done, on tapped phone lines, would expose them to danger.

When a chance encounter in a hotel brings Khaled face-to-face with Hosam Zowa, the author of the fateful short story, he is subsumed into the deepest friendship of his life. It is a friendship that not only sustains him but eventually forces him, as the Arab Spring erupts, to confront agonizing tensions between revolution and safety, family and exile, and how to define his own sense of self against those closest to him.

A devastating meditation on friendship and family, and the ways in which time tests--and frays--those bonds, My Friends is an achingly beautiful work of literature by an author working at the peak of his powers.

Review Quotes

"Riveting and humane . . . At the core of My Friends is a powerful juxtaposition of loneliness and camaraderie, self-reliance and dependence, which defines the outline of exile. . . ."--The Atlantic

"A profound celebration of the sustaining power of friendship, of the ways we mold ourselves against the indentations of those few people whom fate presses against us."--The Washington Post

"A masterly literary meditation on [Matar's] lifelong themes."--The New York Times

"Such a success . . . My Friends is a significant novel, whose ambition and range are indicated by its long opening sentence, which winds between past and present."--Financial Times

"Matar weighs . . . complexities with tremendous sensitivity, and My Friends is not only indispensable for a full understanding of Libyan émigrés but is, more generally, a great novel of exile."--The Wall Street Journal

"Dazzling . . . a personal, deeply felt work . . . tightly structured and controlled, looping back and forth through time and memory, building on itself in a process of gradual expansion and revelation."--Toronto Star

"Matar channels Roberto Bolaño's theme of literary obsession in this sublime novel of a Libyan exile in London whose two friends return to Libya in 2011 to take part in the overthrow of Gadhafi. As the narrator describes his quest to understand life through literature, the novel's sense of truthfulness and urgency restores the reader's belief in what fiction can do."--Publishers Weekly, "Top 10 Pick of the Year"

"Hisham Matar is one of our greatest writers. How lucky we are to be in his midst."--Maaza Mengiste, author of The Shadow King, shortlisted for the Booker Prize

"Hisham Matar's My Friends recounts an exile's life shattered by violence, yet sustained, fiercely if complicatedly, by friendship. An unforgettable novel--wise, urgent, and profound--from one of our era's great writers."--Claire Messud, author of The Emperor's Children

"My Friends is a brilliant novel about innocence and experience, about friendship, family, and exile. It makes clear, once more, that Hisham Matar is a supremely talented novelist."--Colm Tóibín, New York Times bestselling author of The Magician

"My Friends is Matar's most political novel, but also an intimate meditation on friendship and love and everything in between. It is deeply affecting, generous and wise, and all these virtues come in writing of extraordinary elegance, with one of those voices that you want to listen to for the rest of your life."--Juan Gabriel Vásquez, author of The Sound of Things Falling

"Very few writers alive can converse with negative space the way Matar does, and My Friends is stunning, beautiful proof."--Omar El Akkad, author of American War

About the Author

Hisham Matar was born in New York City to Libyan parents, spent his childhood in Tripoli and Cairo, and has lived most of his life in London. His memoir The Return was the recipient of many awards, including the 2017 Pulitzer Prize, the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award, and the Rathbones Folio Prize. It was also shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize, the Costa Biography Award, and a National Book Critics Circle Award. Matar is also the author of the novels In the Country of Men, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, and Anatomy of a Disappearance. His most recent book is A Month in Siena. Matar is a professor at Barnard College and Columbia University, and is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and an honorary fellow of the Royal Academy of Arts. His work has been translated into more than thirty languages.