“In the same way that Egypt and Libya conspired to 'disappear' my father and silence writers such as Idris Ali, they made me, too, to a far lesser extent, feel punished for speaking out.”

American-born British-Libyan novelist, essayist, and memoirist

Hisham Matar is an American-born British-Libyan novelist, essayist, and memoirist. He is known for writing about exile, loss, family, and political violence, often through work shaped by his own experience of displacement. His debut novel, In the Country of Men, was shortlisted for the 2006 Man Booker Prize. His memoir The Return, which follows the search for his father, won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography and several other awards. His essays have appeared in The New Yorker, The Guardian, The New York Times, and elsewhere, and he has written several other novels.