When I was 12 years old, living in Cairo, my parents enrolled me in the American school. Most of the Americans there appeared oddly stifled, determined to remain, if not physically then sentimentally, back in the United States. — Hisham Matar Copy Share Image
In Libya, I did well at school because I was clever. In Egyptian public school, I got the highest marks for the basest of reasons. And in the American school, I struggled. Everything - mathematics, the sciences, pottery, swimming -… — Hisham Matar Copy Share Image
There and then, sitting beside her and within the strength of my adoration, I felt invincible. — Hisham Matar Copy Share Image
To be okay with not knowing is a sign of a mature person and a mature society. — Hisham Matar Copy Share Image
“History remembers Mussolini as the buffoonish Fascist, the ineffective silly man of Italy who led a lame military campaign in the Second World War,… — Hisham Matar Copy Share Image
Language is not just a code; you are writing into its history, into its tides. — Hisham Matar Copy Share Image
My parents were fairly laid-back, but there were certain things about which they were very strict. My brother and I were told never to… — Hisham Matar Copy Share Image
I am terribly interested in the paragraph: the paragraph as an object, the construction, and the possibilities of what a paragraph can do. — Hisham Matar Copy Share Image
My parents left Libya in 1979, escaping political repression, and settled in Cairo. I was nine. — Hisham Matar Copy Share Image
Libyans are deeply unsettled by Gaddafi and his regime's careless contempt for human life. The dictatorship is willing to employ any methods necessary to… — Hisham Matar Copy Share Image
My best hope is that Libya turns into a peaceful, sensible country that has all the things my father and lots of others have… — Hisham Matar Copy Share Image
Season of Migration to the North, by Tayeb Salih, is an eloquent and restrained portrait of one man's exile. It is a rare narrative… — Hisham Matar Copy Share Image
