Friends, Exiles, Dictators, and Censorship

As one wades through the vast landscape of modern history, one will inevitably come across a long list of dictators and strong men. Molded by differing political ideologies, they have defined, altered, and even tainted the landscape of their respective nations and, by extension, the rest of the world. From Asia to Africa to Latin America, these men are reviled by many and revered by the few. The mere mention of their names strikes fear into the hearts of everyone. Germany’s Adolf Hitler, Russia’s Joseph Stalin, Italy’s Benito Mussolini, China’s Mao Zedong, Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, Cambodia’s Pol Pot, and Chile’s Augusto Pinochet, among others, are among the names in this condemned list. They are tyrants who had a proclivity for violence and the censorship of everyone who showed any resistance or opposition against them or their ilk. They left with them a trail of blood and violence.

In Libya, the name Muammar Muhammad Abu Minyar al-Qaddafi once struck fear into those who came within earshot of his name. Born to a poor Bedouin family, he was an eager disciple of Egypt’s President Gamal Abdel Nasser. Qaddafi rose above the ranks in the military which, with his growing influence, allowed him to establish a revolutionary group called the Free Officers Movement. During the 1969 bloodless coup, the group overthrew Senussi monarchy of King Idris. The monarchy’s Western-leaning policies, particularly regarding Libya’s oil, drew the group’s ire. This opened the opportunity for Qaddafi to seize control. Following the King’s deposition, Qaddafi was named commander in chief of the armed forces and chairman of Libya’s new governing body, the Revolutionary Command Council. In 1977, he transformed Libya into a new socialist state called a Jamahiriya (state of the masses).

Like those before him, Qaddafi’s regime was also marked by violence. When news of his murderous regime spread across the world, Libyans, primarily students studying abroad, protested against the regime. This prompted the regime to take some radical steps to stymie the outcry. One of the regime’s most radical moves happened during a student protest on April 17, 1984, just outside the Libyan Embassy in St. James Square in London. As the demonstration was underway, an unnamed gunman fired on the unarmed protesters from inside the Embassy. Eleven Libyan students were wounded while a British police officer named Yvonne Fletcher – she was amongst the police force tasked to monitor the protest – was killed. An eleven-day siege of the Embassy ensued, concluding with the expulsion of Embassy officials and the severance of the United Kingdom’s diplomatic ties with Libya.

There are moments, moments like this, when an abstract longing overcomes me, one made all the more violent by its lack of fixed purpose. The trick time plays is to lull us into the belief that everything lasts forever, and, although nothing does, we continue inside that dream. And, as in a dream, the shape of my days bear no relation to what I had, somehow and without knowing it, allowed myself to expect.

 Hisham Matar, My Friends

It was from this historical event that Libyan-American writer Hisham Matar drew inspiration for his third and latest novel, My Friends. Interestingly, the novel commences in the present when a middle-aged man named Khaled Abd al Hady encounters Hosam Zowa, one of his two best friends, while boarding the Channel train from St. Pancras station in London to Paris. Upon their parting – which was symbolic because Hosam was about to emigrate to California – Khaled found himself roaming around London. Without any particular destination in mind, he revisited places that played a seminal role in his life. This also prompted a trip down memory lane which transported readers to the different cities that were part and parcel of who he is in the present such as the Libyan city of Benghazi where he was born; Paris where he first met Hosam; and Edinburgh where he studied after leaving Libya when he was eighteen.

This inevitably led him to the events of April 17, 1984. Khaled, along with his friend Mustafa al Touny – the third of the friendship trio at the heart of the novel – were among the eleven students who were shot. Mustafa was a fellow Libyan student at the University of Edinburgh and the collision course of their individual paths altered the course of Khaled’s life; it was Mustafa who persuaded him to join the demonstration. Khaled was gravely wounded, with his midsection permanently disfigured with scars. Following the incident, both spent weeks in the hospital in a ward heavily guarded by police. This created a strong between the two young men. By joining the protest, they have effectively been put into exile. They were cognizant that their absence at the university would be noted by Qaddafi’s spies, hence, they could not return to Edinburgh. They also cannot return to Libya.

To protect his identity, Khaled was assigned a false name while recovering. He was eventually granted political asylum in the United Kingdom. He was stuck in London as he was now a marked man. Nevertheless, he was able to build a carefully curated life for himself in London. He managed to create a life of peace, one that is palpably detached from the elements that once threatened to unmoor him from life. From the events of April 1984, he was able to steady the ship, forging a life that is a semblance of normality. He found himself a loving partner in Hannah who he first met in college poetry class. Meanwhile, he first encountered Hosam while in Paris. Hosam was a writer who has been an inspiration for Khaled since he was in his teenage years. A short story written by Hosam left a deep impression on the young Khaled so he was ecstatic when their paths crossed.

With Khaled as their link, Hosam eventually became Mustafa’s friend. The novel captures the contour of their friendship. All occupying flats in London, the three friends share meals and meet at a local bar to have long conversations and exchange thoughts. Matar evocatively painted the landscape of male friendship but it also goes beyond it. Their conversations tackle a vast territory of subjects, ranging from the inane to the complexities of being human. Through the friends’ discourses, Matar explored the theme of existence. Their collective experiences highlight the fault lines and uncertainties that are synonymous with existence. Despite the maelstrom of life, they continue to dream and yearn. Subtly woven into the heart of their conversations and discourses was Libya. Libya loomed at the back and was a vessel for their ruminations.

I had some lovers. Nothing ever lasted long. When we were finally in bed and before the clothes came off, I made sure the lamp was out. If her hand lingered on the scar, or the indentation in my back, and the questions came, I reached for the lie Rana suggested when we were in the sea together: “A car accident when I was a child.”

 Hisham Matar, My Friends

Like any other friendship, the three friends’ relationship was not perfect. To Khaled, their friendship was sacrosanct. He was the glue that held it together. However, their individual differences created a wedge between them. Mustafa, for instance, was apprehensive about Hosam. He created a distance from the older man because Hosam basically abandoned the anti-Qaddafi cause. A gap also manifested between Mustafa and Khaled because of their contrasting personalities. Of the three friends, Mustafa was the most politically radical and expected his friends to share the same sentiments. Khaled, on the other hand, careened toward the literary. Further, when he was still young, Khaled’s father demanded that he avoid any involvement with politics. The dynamics of their friendship came to a head when Arab Spring rebellions broke out in the North African Maghreb countries, particularly Libya.

It was a no-brainer for Mustafa to heed the call. He enlisted in the rebellion against the regime. Against expectation, Hosam also found himself returning home and fell in love with the country he once left behind. Despite having given up writing years before, he slowly fell in love with Arabic poetry. Both rose above the ranks and distinguished themselves as fierce warriors. Their bond inevitably grew. Meanwhile, Khaled had to observe the tension from a distance and read about his friends’ heroics on social media and newspapers. While his two friends were seized by an overwhelming sense of nationalism, Khlaed held back, opting to stay in London and observe as tensions escalated in his home country. But with his experiences, a question naturally arises: can Khaled be blamed for choosing the harmony of his current life over the pursuit of an ideal? It was a touchy subject considering how he tried to stymie the tentacles of the regime all his life, even avoiding communicating with his parents over the phone in the fear that they might be tapped, hence, placing his parents in danger.

Indeed, the atrocities of dictatorships were captured by the novel. It always lingered on the fringes of the conversations between the three friends. The atrocities of the military regime adversely impacted Khaled’s life, prompting him to live in exile. He was both uprooted and rootless. The same can be said with his two friends. The specter of the regime was ubiquitous and, as the three friends have exhibited, the responses to it differed. It was, in a way, another wedge that came between the three friends because of the stark dichotomy in their ideals. Despite the comfort that Khaled found in London, he remained connected with his family; the novel also captured the dynamics of families, particularly how it is affected by exile. However, in the company of his friends far from the country of their birth, Khaled also found a semblance of family. Their shared experiences held them together. London, by extension, provided a semblance of home.

While Khaled was the novel’s primary narrator, he was a cipher for most of the story. We see the story unfold from his perspective, providing glimpses into his friends from his lens. However, there was a palpable distance. There was a subdued tone that he carried with him. Perhaps it was melancholia or perhaps it was the nostalgia of finally meeting a friend after a long time. As the story moves forward, it becomes palpable that the Arab Spring prompted him to confront his own identity. His friends were prodding him to join him but were left bewildered by his position. Mustafa said: I don’t understand you You just carry on as though nothing has happened. Hosam, on the other hand, understood Khaled from a different point of view. He believes that Khaled was among the group of people who abhorred violence. Violence, after all, can be dehumanizing. As Hosam reflected: The thing about war is that if you are in it long enough, it hardens your heart. The uprising, a germane event in contemporary Libyan history, exposed the fault lines lying underneath the facade of their friendship. How well do they really know each other?

I knew no one here and yet I knew them all. I knew this tentative silence, these faces and their cautious withholding. I could sit without saying a word, enduring that discreet anonymity of Libyan male society, with its careful social architecture that allows each one to keep to himself all that matters, that one could come to know an individual intimately and yet have no idea of an essential fact about him.

 Hisham Matar, My Friends

Beyond the intricacies of friendship, dictatorship, and living in exile, the novel was a homage to literature. It was brimming with literary references. When Khaled moved to Edinburgh to study, his primary motivation was to study literature. The title was, in a way, symbolic because Khaled found friends in writers such as Joseph Conrad, Ivan Turgenev, Robert Louis Stevenson, and the Iraqi Badr Shakir al Sayyab. Their works resonate with him. At one point, Khaled and Mustafa attended a talk by Nobel Laureate in Literature Sir V.S. Naipaul in London; they both admired his novel A House for Mr. Biswas. Another palpable literary reference was Hosam. He was a writer and his story underlines how dictators censor and persecute writers. As history has shown, literature is a powerful tool in times of oppression. Regimes are quick to censor and persecute literary works that sprout ideals going against their grain.

The novel was also an homage to London. The city came alive while Khaled found himself crisscrossing the city to reflect, capturing its spirit and soul. It was deliberate and underscored the lush tapestry of London literature that spans the works of Virginia Woolf (Mrs. Dalloway), and Charles Dickens, among others. The story also underlines London’s emigration history: If anything, they withered, grew old and tired. London was, in a way, where Arab writers came to die. Khaled eventually realized that before him, several foreign writers inevitably converged in London and made a life there, eventually calling it their home. Among them were Jean Rhys, T. S. Eliot, and D.H. Lawrence. London has an indelible link with exile and literature. At one point in the story, Hosam took Khaled on a literary adventure across the city where they visited places where writers lived and worked. As Khaled was mapping London, he was also mapping himself, a divided soul whose identity has been fragmented because of trauma and the past.

Longlisted for the 2024 Booker Prize, My Friends was vividly woven together into one lush tapestry by Matar’s adept writing. This complemented the deep reflections on loss, violence friendship, family, and grief that permeate the story. Khaled’s opening line perfectly encapsulates the quality of these ruminations: And perhaps this is the natural way of things, that when a friendship comes to an inexplicable end or wanes or simply dissolves into nothing, the change that we experience at that moment seems inevitable. It was, in a way, it was an opening line and a conclusion. His writing was effective mainly because the event that was the catalyst for the story was deeply personal to him. The novel’s opening line also exemplified the emotional precision that characterized the novel.

My Friends vividly captured the intricacies of life living in exile, the pains of detaching from what was once home, finding new connections despite the whimsical actions of a select few, and the questions of identity that linger as one cuts off connection from the past. It studies our complex ideas of nationalism and the various definitions of home. It is also an homage to literature and to London. But at its heart, My Friends is a complex character study and an extensive probe into the intricacies of friendships, male friendships in particular. Despite the stark dichotomies in their personalities and interests, Khaled loves his friends. He observes their rivalry while getting upset when being excluded. Friendship is rarely monochromatic. Hosam reflects “Friends, what a word. Most use it about those they hardly know. When it is a wondrous thing.” Matar’s third novel, My Friends is deeply-observed and thought-provoking, deserving of the accolades it has received.

The life I have made for myself here is held together by a delicate balance. I must hold on to it with both hands. It is the only life I have now. I would have to abandon it to go back, and, although I wish to abandon it, I fear I might not be able to reconstitute a new life, even if that would be in the folds of the old one. It is a myth that you can return, and a myth also that being uprooted makes you better at doing it again.

 Hisham Matar, My Friends
Book Specs

Author: Hisham Matar
Publisher: Random House
Publishing Date: 2024
No. of Pages: 394
Genre: Historical, Literary

Synopsis

One evening, as a young boy growing up in Benghazi, Khaled hears a bizarre short story read aloud on the radio, about a man being eaten alive by a cat, and has the sense that his life has been altered forever. Obsessed by the power of those words – and by their enigmatic author, Hosam Zowa – Khaled eventually embarks on a journey that will take him far from home, to pursue a life of the mind at the University of Edinburgh.

There, thrust into an open society that is light-years away from the world he knew in Libya, Khaled begins to change. In London, he attends a protest against the Qaddafi regime, only to watch it explode into tragedy. In a flash, Khaled finds himself injured, clinging to life, and unable to leave Britain, much less return to the country of his birth. To even tell his mother and father back home what he has done, on tapped phone lines, would expose them to danger.

When a chance encounter in a Paris hotel brings him face-to-face with Hosam Zowa, the author of the fateful short story, Khaled is subsumed into the deepest friendship of his life. It is a friendship that not only sustains him but eventually forces him, as the Arab Spring erupts, to confront agonizing tensions between revolution and safety, family and exile, and how to define his own sense of self against those closest to him.

A devastating meditation on friendship and family, and the way in which time tests – and frays – those bonds, My Friends is an achingly beautiful work of literature by an author working at the peak of his powers.

About the Author

Hisham Matar (Arabic: هشام مطر) was born in New York City, in 1970, the second of two sons. His father, Jaballa Matar, was considered a political dissident because of his opinions on Colonel Muammar Qaddafi’s coup in 1969. Because of this, he moved his family away from Tripoli. At the time of Hisham’s birth, Jaballa was working for the Libyan delegation to the United Nations in New York. In 1973, the family moved back to Tripoli where Hisham spent his childhood. In 1979, they again fled the city and moved to Cairo where they lived in exile. Due to threats from the regime, Hisham and his older brother Ziad had to attend schools under false identities. In 1986, Hisham moved to England to study. Matar decided to pursue his studies in architecture, and later received an MA in Design Futures at Goldsmiths College, University of London.

While Hisham was studying in London, his father was abducted in Cairo and was subsequently reported as missing. In two letters in Jaballa’s handwriting received by the family in 1996, they learned that the patriarch was kidnapped by the Egyptian secret police, handed over to the Libyan regime, and imprisoned in the notorious Abu Salim prison located at the heart of Tripoli. Unfortunately, these letters were the last sign and only thing they had heard from him or about his whereabouts. This dark phase in the family’s history left a deep impression on Hisham and has been an integral part of his writing, particularly in his highly successful 2016 memoir The Return: Fathers, Sons and the Land in Between.

In 2006 Hisham published his debut novel, In The Country of Men. The novel was warmly received by both literary pundits and the reading public alike. It earned Hisham several accolades across the world such as the 2006 Guardian First Book Award, 2007 Premio Internazionale Flaiano (Sezione Letteratura), 2007 Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize, 2007 Premio Gregor von Rezzori for foreign fiction translated into Italian, and 2007 Arab American Book Award. It was also shortlisted for the Booker Prize and was listed by The New York Times as one of the 100 Notable Books of the Year. His sophomore novel, Anatomy of a Disappearance, was published in 2011 and was equally as successful as its predecessor. It was even nominated for the 2013 International Dublin Literary Award. His latest novel, My Friends, was published in 2024 and was longlisted for the Booker Prize. It won the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction.

Meanwhile, The Return earned Hisham the Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography, the PEN/Jean Stein Award, the Prix du Livre Etranger Inter & Le Journal du Dimanche, the Rathbones Folio Prize, and The Slightly Foxed Best First Biography Prize. Matar has also written several essays that appeared in various international publications such as The New Yorker, The Guardian, The Financial Times Magazine, and London Review of Books. In 2008 Matar became the Mary Amelia Cummins Harvey Visiting Fellow Commoner at Girton College at the University of Cambridge. In 2013, he was named a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. In 2014 he became the Weiss International Fellow in Literature and the Arts and Adjunct Associate Professor in the English Department at Barnard University in New York City.