Hisham Matar, acclaimed author of The Return, presents My Friends, a powerful new novel following three Libyan friends—Khaled, Mustafa, and Hosam—whose lives are forever changed after protesting against Gaddafi’s regime.

The 1984 demonstration at the Libyan embassy in London shapes their futures, binding them to each other and their homeland. Decades later, amid Libya’s Arab Spring uprising, the trio faces a choice: embrace the lives they’ve built in exile or confront the past they left behind.

Known for his explorations of memory, identity, and resilience, join Matar at The Conduit in conversation with Paul van Zyl, as they bring to life this powerful story on the human impact of political upheaval.

Speakers:

Hisham Matar was born in New York to Libyan parents, spent his childhood in Tripoli and Cairo and has lived most of his life in London. His memoir The Return was the recipient of the 2017 Pulitzer Prize, the PEN/Jean Stein Award, the Rathbones Folio Prize, the Slightly Foxed Best First Biography Prize, Frances Prix du Livre Etranger Inter & Le Journal du Dimanche and Germany’s Geschwister Scholl Prize, and was shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford, the Costa Biography and the National Book Critics Circle Awards. He is also the author of the novels In the Country of Men, which was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, and Anatomy of a Disappearance, and his most recent book is A Month in Siena. Matar is a Professor at Barnard College, Columbia University. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Academy of Arts. His work has been translated into over thirty languages.

Paul van Zyl is the co-Founder of The Conduit and Chief Executive Officer. Paul is a winner of the prestigious Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship and was named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum. He served as the Executive Secretary of South Africa’s post-apartheid Truth and Reconciliation Commission and co-founded the International Centre for Transitional Justice (ICTJ), an international human rights organisation based in New York City.