British Libyan writer Hisham Matar returns with a story of friendship and revolution called My Friends, a meditation on how political upheaval shapes the most intimate and private relationships.
JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
Novelist Hisham Matar won the Pulitzer Prize in 2016 for his memoir, “The Return.” He grew up in exile in London, and in that book, he told the story of his journey back to Libya in search of his father, who had been in prison during the dictatorship of Muammar Gaddafi. Politics, persecution and resistance are recurring themes in his work, but so are paintings, libraries and friendships. Hisham Matar’s new novel is called “My Friends.” NPR’s Bilal Qureshi has its story. And a warning – this piece contains the sounds of gunfire.
BILAL QURESHI, BYLINE: In April of 1984, protesters assembled outside the Libyan embassy in London. A window opened, and a gunman fired into the crowd.
(SOUNDBITE OF GUNSHOTS)
HISHAM MATAR: Eleven Libyan demonstrators were wounded, and a policewoman, Yvonne Fletcher, was killed.
QURESHI: Britain severed diplomatic ties with Libya for years.
MATAR: When this happened, I was about 13, so I was younger than my protagonists. And I remember, Bilal, seeing it on the news, and I remember how it marked me. You know, I remember one of the characters – one of the characters, no, he’s now one of my characters – but one of the real people who had been shot, falling on the ground and calling out for his mother. I remember that really affected me as a 13-year-old. And later on, when I thought I would really, really love to write a big, dramatic novel about something as private and intimate as a friendship. And I thought, wouldn’t it be interesting to have them go through that event that had marked me so much?
QURESHI: In the new novel “My Friends,” Matar’s central character is an international student from Libya named Khaled. He’s visiting London in April of 1984 and finds his life upended by that…
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