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" I am longing to see Libya rejoin the world as the internationalist Mediterranean country that it was. "
Hisham Matar
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Longing
World
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" My father believed in armed struggle. "
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" My parents left Libya in 1979, escaping political repression, and settled in Cairo. I was nine. "
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Left
Escaping
Parents
" 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
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Cynical
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" There's always a problem when you write, something you're trying to resolve, and sometimes a view can be inspiring. "
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Sometimes
Problem
You
" 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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" Turgenev's achievement lies in how he succeeded, in spite of himself, his country, and his time, in exempting his work from public duty. This has given it that unnameable quality that makes every sentence true, every silence trustworthy. "
Hisham Matar
Achievement
Work
Silence
" Political dictatorships take possession not just of money and belongings but of narrative. "
Hisham Matar
Just
Take
Political
" I've never been particularly interested in genre distinctions. They seem to me more useful to a librarian than to a writer. "
Hisham Matar
Me
Been
Never
" Some of the most powerful memories are those when you are very, very young. Adult life is seen through the reflection of complex, rational thought. "
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Life
Powerful
Reflection
" 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
He
" 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. "
Hisham Matar
Long Time
Hope
You
" The Arab Spring is a powerful and compelling response not only to an age of tyranny but also to the remnant chains of imperial influence. "
Hisham Matar
Only
Age
Powerful
" Living in hope is a really terrible thing. "
Hisham Matar
Terrible
Thing
Hope
" I've very aware of my rootlessness. "
Hisham Matar
Aware
Very
" In the same way that Egypt and Libya conspired to 'disappear' my father and silence writers such as Idris Ali, they made me, too, to a far lesser extent, feel punished for speaking out. "
Hisham Matar
Egypt
Silence
Way
" When I was 12 years old, living in Cairo, my parents enrolled me in the American school. Most of the Americans there appeared oddly stifled, determined to remain, if not physically then sentimentally, back in the United States. "
Hisham Matar
Me
Living
American
" In Libya, I did well at school because I was clever. In Egyptian public school, I got the highest marks for the basest of reasons. And in the American school, I struggled. Everything - mathematics, the sciences, pottery, swimming - had to be conducted in a language I hardly knew and that was neither spoken in the streets nor at home. "
Hisham Matar
School
Got
Home
" 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.' "
Hisham Matar
Project
Growing Up
Growing
" 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. "
Hisham Matar
Change
Thought
Said
" My father, the political dissident Jaballa Matar, disappeared from his home in Cairo in March 1990. "
Hisham Matar
Political
Father
His
" I used to be a keen rider. Sometimes I could sense what a horse liked or preferred to do. "
Hisham Matar
Rider
Sometimes
Used
" There is a tendency to over-exaggerate and over-romanticise the place of a writer in a revolution. That bothers me. I think it's inappropriate. "
Hisham Matar
Me
Place
Revolution
" Grenfell, the building set on fire with the help of its own face, is a scene of a complex injustice: one that is moral, economic, political, and aesthetic. Not only was the cladding unsafe, it was ugly; not only was it ugly, it was untrue both to the architecture of the building it covered and untrue to its responsibility to human safety. "
Hisham Matar
Architecture
Responsibility
Fire
" 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. "
Hisham Matar
Hope
Best
Debate
" There are two voices: the first says write; the second hardly speaks, but I know what he wants. And if I let him, nothing would get done. He hovers at the edges. "
Hisham Matar
First
Two
Done
" The cost of Colonel Gaddafi's rule on Libyan society is incalculable. "
Hisham Matar
Gaddafi
Cost
Colonel
" Civil war is a national crisis and also a private trauma: We suffer it collectively and in isolation. "
Hisham Matar
Isolation
War
Suffer
" 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. "
Hisham Matar
Value
Think
People
" I've never thought of myself in terms of an identity. I'm always baffled when I encounter someone who gives the impression about being confident about a particular defined identity. "
Hisham Matar
Confident
Thought
Myself
" My family settled in Cairo in 1980. I was nine. I missed Libya terribly, but I also took to Cairo. I perfected the accent. People assumed I was Egyptian. "
Hisham Matar
Family
Accent
Missed