Guests of the New Theater: Hisham Matar

Hisham Matar in Warsaw! Conducted by: Agata Kasprolewicz Translation: Anna Rosiak

Guests of the New Theatre: Hisham Matar, Wydawnictwo Czarne

The Pulitzer Prize-winning writer will visit Poland for the premiere of his novel My Friends (background). Hanna Jankowska).

This book is Matara's most political novel, a meditation on friendship, love, and everything in between. To quote Hania Rani: Hisham is an event for me — a friend and teacher who, by recounting the brutal fate of his life and that of his beloved Libya, touches on universal and incredibly familiar matters.

The novel was nominated for the Booker Prize and received the George Orwell Prize.

Hisham Matar (1970) was born in New York, the son of a Libyan diplomat to the United Nations, writer and essayist. He spent his childhood in Tripoli and Cairo, and most of his adult life in London. He has published in The Independent, The Guardian and The New York Times. Lecturer at Barnard College. Member of the Royal Literary Association and honorary member of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts. He made his debut with the novel In the Land of Men. It earned him a Booker Award nomination, as well as the Guardian's Best Debut Award, the Christopher Ondaatje Award, the Commonwealth Foundation's Best Debut Award, the Ennio Flaian Award, and the Gregor von Rezzori Award. In the autobiographical Return, Matar recalls the story of the kidnapping of his father, whose fate is still unknown to this day. For this book in 2017, the author was honored with the Pulitzer Prize, the Jean Stein Prize from the American PEN Center and the Folio Award. He has also received nominations for the Baillie Gifford Award (formerly the BBC Samuel Johnson Award), the Costa Literary Award, and the Los Angeles Times Literary Award” According to The New York Times and the Waterstones bookstore chain, Return was one of the most important books of 2016. Matar is also the author of the books Anatomy of Disappearance and A Month in Siena. His latest novel, My Friends, was awarded the George Orwell Prize and was nominated for a Booker Prize. Matara's books have been translated into more than thirty languages.

Agata Kasprolewicz — Author and host of the literary podcast Report on books. Originator and creator of Jan Natkański's Arabian Tales and Report from the Future.

London, April 1984. Students Khaled and Mustafa decide to take part in a demonstration against the Gaddafi regime organized under the Libyan embassy. The protest ends tragically: a series of shots are fired from the embassy window, a policewoman is killed, eleven people are injured. For young men who have been exposed to dictatorship, it is the end of their lives so far. From now on, they will suffer the consequences of this ferocious event, which will close their way back to their homeland. And yet it will also prove to be the beginning of an extraordinary friendship. Khaled, Mustafa and Hosam, a Libyan writer also present at the demonstration, will try to rebuild their world in London by supporting each other.

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Hisham Matar paints a portrait of people suspended between two homelands with extraordinary sensitivity. Weaving the experiences of fictional characters with authentic events, it leads the reader from the 1970s to the Arab Spring. My friends are a reflection on the nature of emigration, loyalty and the bonds that define our lives. It is a story about how politics can painfully change human destinies, about loneliness and the need to belong, and above all about the constant search for a way home.

photo: Diana Matar