My Friends

<b>Hisham Matar</b> was born in New York to Libyan parents spent his childhood in Tripoli and Cairo and has lived most of his life in London. His memoir <i>The Return</i> was the recipient of the 2017 Pulitzer Prize the PEN/Jean Stein Award the Rathbones Folio Prize the Slightly Foxed Best First Biography Prize Frances Prix du Livre Etranger Inter &amp; Le Journal du Dimanche and Germany's Geschwister Scholl Prize and was shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford the Costa Biography and the National Book Critics Circle Awards. He is also the author of the novels <i>In the Country of Men</i> which was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and <i>Anatomy of a Disappearance</i> and his most recent book is <i>A Month in Siena.</i> Matar is a Professor at Barnard College Columbia University. He 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 over thirty languages.|<b>I have always admired Matar's tender and compassionate but equally strong and compelling voice</b>|Hisham Matar's MY FRIENDS recounts an exile's life shattered by violence yet sustained fiercely if complicatedly by friendship. <b>An unforgettable novel -- wise urgent and profound -- from one of our era's great writers.</b>|<b>It is impossible to describe the profound depth and beauty of this book.</b> MY FRIENDS is a breathtaking novel every page a miracle and an affirmation. If there is a language of exile MY FRIENDS is what it sounds like: exquisite and painful compassionate and unflinching and above all overwhelming in its boundless hope that within exile rests a path towards a different kind of return. One that leads us back to ourselves. <b>Hisham is one of our greatest writers how lucky we are to be in his midst.</b>|<b>'I could not love this book more. </b>Reflective compelling deeply tender at times there are surprising shifts and turns and moments of utter brilliance where new understanding blooms. A walk across London from King&#8217;s Cross Station to Shepherd's Bush gives rise to memories of a life diverted by a moment of political action. About friendship exile belonging lives lived and not lived and Libya's recent past London emerges as a place of refuge a transitory half-home even after three decades a stepping stone. As soon as I finished I started again beguiled by Matar&#8217;s long sinuous sentences and enlivened by my new knowledge of what it was all about my heart moving in my chest. <i><b>My Friends</b></i><b> is the most beautiful complete masterful novel I have read in a long time. Read it.' </b>|<i>My Friends</i> is Matar's most political novel but also <b>an intimate meditation on friendship and love</b> and everything in between. It is deeply affecting generous and wise and all these virtues come in writing of extraordinary elegance with <b>one of those voices that you want to listen to for the rest of your life</b>.|<i>My Friends</i> is a brilliant novel about innocence and experience about friendship family and exile. It makes clear once more that <b>Hisham Matar is a supremely talented novelist.</b>|I loved this sweeping yet intimate powerful yet subtle tale of Libyan exiles in London and the way politics shapes lives.|<b>I have always admired Matar's tender and compassionate but equally strong and compelling voice</b>|<i>My Friends</i> is Matar's most political novel but also <b>an intimate meditation on friendship and love</b> and everything in between. It is deeply affecting generous and wise and all these virtues come in writing of extraordinary elegance with <b>one of those voices that you want to listen to for the rest of your life</b>.|<b>It is impossible to describe the profound depth and beauty of this book.</b> MY FRIENDS is a breathtaking novel every page a miracle and an affirmation. If there is a language of exile MY FRIENDS is what it sounds like: exquisite and painful compassionate and unflinching and above all overwhelming in its boundless hope that within exile rests a path towards a different kind of return. One that leads us back to ourselves. <b>Hisham is one of our greatest writers how lucky we are to be in his midst. </b>|Matar writes <b>beautifully </b>. . . He is <b>a nuanced observer with a gift for conveying both absurdity and raw emotion</b>|Matar is beginning to do for the Arab experience what the likes of Salman Rushdie have done for the sub-continent|<b>Beautifully</b><b> written . . . a graceful guide through Libya's recent history </b>|Hisham Matar's MY FRIENDS recounts an exile's life shattered by violence yet sustained fiercely if complicatedly by friendship. <b>An unforgettable novel -- wise urgent and profound -- from one of our era's great writers.</b>|<p><b>An intensely moving novel about three friends living in political exile and the emotional homeland that deep friendships can provide - from the Booker-shortlisted Pulitzer prize-winning author of THE RETURN</b><br><br>Khaled and Mustafa meet at university in Edinburgh: two Libyan eighteen-year-olds expecting to return home after their studies. In a moment of recklessness and courage they travel to London to join a demonstration in front of the Libyan embassy. When government officials open fire on protestors in broad daylight both friends are wounded and their lives forever changed.<br><br>Over the years that follow Khaled Mustafa and their friend Hosam a writer are bound together by their shared history. If friendship is a space to inhabit theirs becomes small and inhospitable when a revolution in Libya forces them to choose between the lives they have created in London and the lives they left behind.<br><br><b>'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 TOIBIN</b><br><br><b><br>'I have always admired Matar's tender and compassionate but equally strong and compelling voice' ELIF SHAFAK<br><br></b><br><b>'It is impossible to describe the profound depth and beauty of this book. MY FRIENDS is a breathtaking novel every page a miracle and an affirmation. Hisham is one of our greatest writers how lucky we are to be in his midst.' </b><b>MAAZA MENGISTE author of THE SHADOW KING</b><br></p>|<p><b>SHORTLISTED FOR THE ORWELL PRIZE FOR POLITICAL FICTION<br><br>'The first Booker contender of 2024... a deeply touching beautifully composed book' <i>Sunday Times</i></b><b><br><br>An intensely moving novel about three friends living in political exile and the emotional homeland that deep friendships can provide - from the Booker-shortlisted Pulitzer prize-winning author of THE RETURN</b><br><br>Khaled and Mustafa meet at university in Edinburgh: two Libyan eighteen-year-olds expecting to return home after their studies. In a moment of recklessness and courage they travel to London to join a demonstration in front of the Libyan embassy. When government officials open fire on protestors in broad daylight both friends are wounded and their lives forever changed.<br><br>Over the years that follow Khaled Mustafa and their friend Hosam a writer are bound together by their shared history. If friendship is a space to inhabit theirs becomes small and inhospitable when a revolution in Libya forces them to choose between the lives they have created in London and the lives they left behind.<br><br><b>'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 TOIBIN</b><br><br><b><br>'I have always admired Matar's tender and compassionate but equally strong and compelling voice' ELIF SHAFAK<br><br></b><br><b>'It is impossible to describe the profound depth and beauty of this book. MY FRIENDS is a breathtaking novel every page a miracle and an affirmation. Hisham is one of our greatest writers how lucky we are to be in his midst.' </b><b>MAAZA MENGISTE author of THE SHADOW KING</b><br></p>