The Return: Fathers, Sons, and the Land in Between
2016 • 288 pages
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WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE IN BIOGRAPHY WINNER OF THE RATHBONES FOLIO PRIZE SHORTLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION SHORTLISTED FOR THE COSTA BIOGRAPHY AWARD SHORTLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FOR AUTOBIOGRAPHY WINNER OF THE SLIGHTLY FOXED BEST FIRST BIOGRAPHY PRIZE ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES' TOP 10 BOOKS OF 2016 The Return is at once a universal and an intensely personal tale. It is an exquisite meditation on how history and politics can bear down on an individual life. And yet Hisham Matar's memoir isn't just about the burden of the past, but the consolation of love, literature and art. It is the story of what it is to be human. Hisham Matar was nineteen when his father was kidnapped and taken to prison in Libya. He would never see him again. Twenty-two years later, the fall of Gaddafi meant he was finally able to return to his homeland. In this moving memoir, the author takes us on an illuminating journey, both physical and psychological; a journey to find his father and rediscover his country. 'A beautifully-written memoir that skillfully balances a graceful guide through Libya's recent history with the author's dogged quest to find his father' Barack Obama
Reviews with the most likes.
If there was ever an existential memoir, this would be it. Matar has a beautiful way of writing, and he weaves together his family's history, their exile across many lands and many years, Libyan political history, and his own quest to find out what happened to his father in a lyrical yet grounded way.
Some of my favorite quotes:
- “The last light stretched long and yet as bright as the skin of a ripe orange.”
- “Revolutions have their momentum, and once you join the current it is very difficult to escape the rapids. Revolutions are not solid gates through which nations pass but a force comparable to a storm that sweeps all before it.”
- “I realize now that my walks, whether taken to pass the time or to better acquaint myself with a foreign city, or conducted in a hurry—to post a letter, to catch a train or on the occasion I was late for an appointment—all took place under the vague suspicion that I might somehow come upon myself, that is to say, that other self who lives in harmony with his surroundings, who exists, like a chapter in a book, in the right place, not torn out and left to make sense on its own.”
