Hisham Matar

1970–

British-Libyan novelist, essayist and memoirist born in New York and raised in Tripoli and Cairo before moving to Britain. Exile, political repression and the disappearance of his father recur in his writing. In the Country of Men (2006), his debut novel, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. The Return, his memoir about searching for his father, won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography. His books also include Anatomy of a Disappearance and A Month in Siena. My Friends (2024) was Booker-longlisted.

Timeline of Hisham Matar’s life

Works

Prizes