The Return

What a brilliant book. The Return reads as easily as a thriller, but is a story that will stick; a person is lost but gravity and resonance remain

What a brilliant book. The Return reads as easily as a thriller, but is a story that will stick; a person is lost but gravity and resonance remain

It is likely to become a classic.

A total work of art. It reminded me of Solzhenitsyn. It is of the same importance. I love it.

Wise and agonizing and thrilling to read

Bristles with arresting wisdom

A treasure for the ages

Tremendously powerful

A magnificent memoir of exile and loss

One of the essential books of our times

A profound and powerful meditation on love, loss and exile

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 received a Pulitzer Prize in 2017. He is also the author of In the Country of Men, shortlisted for the Booker Prize, Anatomy of a Disappearance and A Month in Siena. His most recent novel, My Friends, won the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction 2024, was longlisted for the Booker Prize, and nominated for the National Book Award. His work has been translated into over thirty languages.