My Friends

By Hisham Matar

NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST • LONGLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE • A “masterly” (The New York Times, Editors’ Choice), “riveting” (The Atlantic) novel of friendship, family, and the unthinkable realities of exile, from the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Return “A profound celebration of the sustaining power of friendship, of the ways we mold ourselves against the indentations of those few people whom fate presses against us.”—The Washington Post ONE OF PUBLISHER WEEKLY’S TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR • A TIME BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR WINNER OF THE ORWELL PRIZE FOR POLITICAL FICTION • LONGLISTED FOR THE ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDAL FOR EXCELLENCE IN FICTION One evening, as a young boy growing up in Benghazi, Khaled hears a bizarre short story read aloud on the radio, about a man being eaten alive by a cat, and has the sense that his life has been changed forever. Obsessed by the power of those words—and by their enigmatic author, Hosam Zowa—Khaled eventually embarks on a journey that will take him far from home, to pursue a life of the mind at the University of Edinburgh. There, thrust into... Read More