My Friends

Hisham Matar Press Reviews

I have always admired Matar's tender and compassionate but equally strong and compelling voice -- Elif Shafak Hisham Matar's MY FRIENDS recounts an exile's life shattered by violence, yet sustained, fiercely if complicatedly, by friendship. An unforgettable novel -- wise, urgent and profound -- from one of our era's great writers. - Claire Messud

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. 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. Hisham is one of our greatest writers, how lucky we are to be in his midst. - Maaza Mengiste, author of THE SHADOW KING, shortlisted for the Booker Prize

My Friends is Matar's most political novel, but also an intimate meditation on friendship and love and everything in between. It is deeply affecting, generous and wise, and all these virtues come in writing of extraordinary elegance, with one of those voices that you want to listen to for the rest of your life. -- Juan Gabriel Vásquez 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

I have always admired Matar's tender and compassionate but equally strong and compelling voice -- Elif Shafak My Friends is Matar's most political novel, but also an intimate meditation on friendship and love and everything in between. It is deeply affecting, generous and wise, and all these virtues come in writing of extraordinary elegance, with one of those voices that you want to listen to for the rest of your life. -- Juan Gabriel Vásquez 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. 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. Hisham is one of our greatest writers, how lucky we are to be in his midst. - Maaza Mengiste, author of THE SHADOW KING, shortlisted for the Booker Prize

Matar writes beautifully . . . He is a nuanced observer with a gift for conveying both absurdity and raw emotion - Guardian on In the Country of Men

Matar is beginning to do for the Arab experience what the likes of Salman Rushdie have done for the sub-continent -- Sathnam Sanghera on In The Country of Men - The Times

Beautifully written . . . a graceful guide through Libya's recent history - Barack Obama on The Return

Hisham Matar's MY FRIENDS recounts an exile's life shattered by violence, yet sustained, fiercely if complicatedly, by friendship. An unforgettable novel -- wise, urgent and profound -- from one of our era's great writers. - Claire Messud