Hisham Matar

The author, Hisham Matar, was born in New York City in 1970, while his father was working for the Libyan office in the United Nations. By age three, the family moved back to Tripoli, Libya; by age nine, the family fled the country out of fear of the regime. This book recalls Matar's long-awaited return to his home country after living for thirty-three years in exile. He spent most of this time in London, a city he has always naturally felt a connection with. Matar uses himself and his family as a symbol of all Libyan families who have universally suffered as a result of decades' worth of conflict and oppression. Matar's family is one whose history of political dissidence dates back to his grandfather's resistance to the pre-WWII Italian occupation of Libya. His experience as the son of "one of the opposition's most prominent figures" is...