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" 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. "

Hisham Matar

Men

Father

Country

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

" I am longing to see Libya rejoin the world as the internationalist Mediterranean country that it was. "

" A revolution is not a painless march to the gates of freedom and justice. It is a struggle between rage and hope, between the temptation to destroy and the desire to build. "

" Libyans are deeply unsettled by Gaddafi and his regime's careless contempt for human life. The dictatorship is willing to employ any methods necessary to remain in power. "

" I get a lot of energy from making things up, which is why I feel I'm a novelist. "

" My parents were fairly laid-back, but there were certain things about which they were very strict. My brother and I were told never to turn away a person in need. And it didn't matter what we thought of their motives, whether they were truly in need or not. "

" My parents left Libya in 1979, escaping political repression, and settled in Cairo. I was nine. "

" I am terribly interested in the paragraph: the paragraph as an object, the construction, and the possibilities of what a paragraph can do. "

Hisham Matar

Construction

I Am

" All great art allows us this: a glimpse across the limits of our self. "

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

Hisham Matar

Ultimately

I Am

" Ivan Turgenev's novella 'First Love' is one of the most perfect things ever written. "

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

" To me, writing is like singing in the most inappropriate place, singing as beautifully as you can on a bus or in a bank, where people least expect it, and trying to get them to want to listen. "

Hisham Matar

Place

Singing

" Language is not just a code; you are writing into its history, into its tides. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" Political dictatorships take possession not just of money and belongings but of narrative. "

" We have defeated Gaddafi on the battlefield; now we must defeat him in our imagination. We must not allow his legacy to corrupt our dream. Let's keep focused on the true prize: unity, democracy, and the rule of law. Let's not seek revenge; that would diminish our future. "

" 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. "

" It is evident that Qaddafi is mentally unwell. Like Richard III, he has barricaded himself within lies. "

Hisham Matar

Lies

Within

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

" 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. "

" I ultimately write for myself and the people I love. "

" We got rid of Muammar Gaddafi. I never thought I would be able to write these words. "

" I can pinpoint the exact moment when I first began to think about what profession I should go into. It was 1978. I was seven and had just been handed over by the women of my family to the earnest and self-important gatherings of the men. I was no longer the responsibility of my aunts and older female cousins. I was now a man. This was a tragedy. "

" There's always a problem when you write, something you're trying to resolve, and sometimes a view can be inspiring. "

" It is easy to underestimate the demands of an open heart. "

" Nothing we read can import new or foreign feelings that we don't, in one form or another, already possess. "