by Hisham Matar
First published 2024
Khaled and Mustafa arrive in London as eighteen-year-old university students from Libya. They plan to finish their studies and return home. In a split-second decision, they join a protest outside the Libyan embassy. Government officials fire into the crowd in broad daylight. Both young men are wounded. The shooting changes everything. Years pass. Khaled, Mustafa, and their writer friend Hosam remain connected by what they experienced together. They build new lives in London while carrying the weight of that violent day. When revolution erupts in Libya, the three friends face an impossible choice. They can stay in the safety they have constructed abroad or return to the homeland they left behind. Their friendship becomes a small, difficult space as they wrestle with loyalty, exile, and belonging.
Genres: fiction, african-literature, contemporary, 21st-century
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, loyalty
Setting: Libya, London
Period: 21st-century
457 pages · Hardcover · Viking
Content warnings: violence