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" From before I was born, we Arabs have been caught between two forces that, seemingly, cannot be defeated: our ruthless dictators, who oppress and humiliate us, and the cynical western powers, who would rather see us ruled by criminals loyal to them than have democratically elected leaders accountable to us. "

Hisham Matar

Loyal

Cynical

Born

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" When I'm writing, my mood is very good - and I love life. "

" I think, ultimately, I am a sensualist and an aesthete. "

Hisham Matar

Ultimately

I Am

" Like all novelists, I'm interested in the filters between reality and the imagination. "

Hisham Matar

Imagination

Interested

" I think my generation's inability to speak in absolute terms when it comes to politics is a very positive thing; it's made us more nuanced, made us more complex. "

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Think

Speak

" Civil war is a national crisis and also a private trauma: We suffer it collectively and in isolation. "

" My father believed in armed struggle. "

" I used to believe that it was not possible to lose someone I loved without sensing it somehow, without feeling something shift. But it's not true. People can die, sometimes the closest people to us, without us noticing a thing. "

" One of the reasons why Gadafy's dictatorship has managed to remain in power for so long is not just because it has shown itself to be able to exact a great deal of violence, both psychological and physical, on its people, but because it has been very successful at imposing a narrative, a story. "

" Growing up in the Libya of the 1970s, I remember the prevalence of local bands who were as much influenced by Arabic musical traditions as by the Rolling Stones or the Beatles. But the project of 'Arabisation' soon got to them, too, and western musical instruments were declared forbidden as 'instruments of imperialism.' "

" In 2006, I published my first novel, 'In the Country of Men.' The publication of the book gave me a bigger platform to speak about my father's abduction and Libya's human-rights record. "

" Switching languages is a form of conversion. And like all conversions, whether it's judged a failure or a success, it excites the desire to leave, go elsewhere, adopt a new language and start all over again. It also means that a conscious effort is demanded to remain still. "

" From my family alone, Qaddafi had imprisoned five men. "

" Making something of loss is, on some level, satisfying. "

" I don't remember a time when words were not dangerous. "

" Architecture remains a passion and a subject I'm very interested in. I learned a great deal from studying it and working in it. "

" Like most dictators, Col Gaddafi detests the metropolis. His vision of Libya is a kind of Bedouin romantic medievalism, suspicious of universities, theatres, galleries and cafes, and so monitors the cities' inhabitants with paranoid suspicion. "

" My best hope is that Libya turns into a peaceful, sensible country that has all the things my father and lots of others have been calling for: independence of the courts and press, a protected and democratic constitution, with different parties involved in a healthy and open debate. "

" I admire Turgenev, Camus, Proust and Shakespeare, but I've also learnt a lot about writing from composers and artists. "

" I am, by instinct, wary of revolutions. The gathering of the masses fills me with trepidation. "

" Great writing fills me with hopeful enthusiasm and never envy. "

" The romantic idea of the penniless writer is false. It's terrible. I hated being in debt. I hated the anxiety of not knowing whether we could pay our rent that month. Thankfully, I had a wife who was very supportive and had faith and shared my madness. "

" When you've been living in hope for a long time as I have, suddenly you realize that certainty is far more desirable than hope. "

" I've always said - I've always said I'm not, by temperament, a romantic about revolutions or given to revolutions. I've always thought that they are not the ideal way to change. "

" My father, the political dissident Jaballa Matar, disappeared from his home in Cairo in March 1990. "

" One of the frustrations of prison life, which is also one of its intended consequences, is that the prisoner is made ineffective. He is unable to be of much use. The aim is to render him powerless. "

Hisham Matar

Prison

Consequences

" Being my father's son is a kind of privilege. "

" Over the centuries, close-knit tribes have played an important part in the cohesion of Libyan society. "

" I don't believe people are interested in dates and facts. I don't think it is interesting to say what it is to be this person or that, but I do believe it is entertaining and perhaps even of value to express how it is to be that person. "

" The space where writing happens is a unique space that's hard to define, and when you're kicked out of it because you're travelling or distracted, it seems so elusive and hard to defend because you yourself doubt whether it existed. "

" I used to be a keen rider. Sometimes I could sense what a horse liked or preferred to do. "