BOOKS


Author Interview Hisham Matar


My Friends, the extraordinary third novel from Hisham Matar, is the story of three Libyan friends in exile


Alice O'Keeffe @aliceokbooks


‘‘‘‘ I


wanted the novel to open with a parting because I think whenever you take somebody that you love to an airport, or train station or wherever, the world seems


to completely change the moment they leave. I thought that would be a very good place to start because in a sense a novel is a departure, it is a seting off.” My Friends, the extraordinary third novel from Hisham Matar, is the story of three Libyan friends in exile. The story is told across a walk in London, from St Pancras to Shepherd’s Bush, on one day in November 2016, aſter the narrator, Khaled, says goodbye to his old friend of two decades, Hosam, at the station and walks back home.


It is a walk of a few hours, and yet it spans decades, as Khaled revisits his past. Born and raised in Libya, he leaves in the early 1980s to atend universit in Edinburgh as an 18-year-old student on a government scholarship, expecting to return home to his family aſter graduation. But when news comes of students rounded up and thrown in jail by the authorities back in Libya, Khaled and his friend Mustafa decide to travel to London to join a demonstration in front of the Libyan Embassy.


20 3rd November 2023


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