Full name: The Return: Fathers, Sons and the Land In Between

Author: Hisham Matar Year: 2016 Rank: Rating: Original Rating: Pop Rating: Genres/categories: Memoirs, Non Fiction, Award winners, History Culture: Africa Purchase/reserch links: Amazon Goodreads LibraryThing ISBNs: 9780812985085 0812985087

From Man Booker Prize and National Book Critics Circle Award finalist Hisham Matar, a memoir of his journey home to his native Libya in search of answers to his father's disappearance. In 2012, after the overthrow of Qaddafi, the acclaimed novelist Hisham Matar journeys to his native Libya after an absence of thirty years.      When he was twelve, Matar and his family went into political exile. Eight years later Matar's father, a former diplomat and military man turned brave political dissident, was kidnapped from the streets of Cairo by the Libyan government and is believed to have been held in the regime's most notorious prison.  Now, the prisons are empty and little hope remains that Jaballa Matar will be found alive. Yet, as the author writes, hope is "persistent and cunning".     This book is a profoundly moving family memoir, a brilliant and affecting portrait of a country and a people on the cusp of immense change, and a disturbing and timeless depiction of the monstrous nature of absolute power. Similar books: I'm Supposed to Protect You from All This by Nadja Spiegelman Still Waters by Jennifer Lauck Over the Top by Jonathan Van Ness Blackbird by Jennifer Lauck Wildflower by Drew Barrymore Drama by John Lithgow Kiss Me Like A Stranger by Gene Wilder The Bill from My Father by Bernard Cooper My Own Two Feet by Beverly Cleary Myself When Young by Daphne Du Maurier This Is Just My Face by Gabourey Sidibe Not Becoming My Mother by Ruth Reichl Then Again by Diane Keaton In Spite of Myself by Christopher Plummer Nevertheless by Alec Baldwin Left to Tell by Immaculee Ilibagiza Strength in What Remains by Tracy Kidder When a Crocodile Eats the Sun by Peter Godwin Lose Your Mother by Saidiya Hartman One Day I Will Write About This Place by Binyavanga Wainaina