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" The Qaddafis, father and sons, speak the grammar of dictatorship: threats and bribery. "
Hisham Matar
Speak
Father
Dictatorship
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" Nothing makes you feel more stupid than learning a new language. You lose your confidence. You want to disappear. Not be noticed. Say as little as possible. "
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" Books have shown me horror and beauty. "
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" There's something very bizarre about having a father who has disappeared. It's very hard to articulate. "
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" For an overwhelming majority of my life, my country has been a source of pain, fear, and embarrassment. "
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" 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. "
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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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" 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. "
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" 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. "
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Effort
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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. "
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" Like all novelists, I'm interested in the filters between reality and the imagination. "
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" We need a father to rage against. "
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Rage
" The Arab Spring, with all of its failings and failures, exposed the lie that if we are to live, then we must live as slaves. It was an attempt to undermine not only the orthodoxy of dictatorship but also an international political orthodoxy where every activity must be approved by the profit logic of the 'ledger.' "
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Live
Lie
Logic
" 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. "
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" When a dictatorship imprisons someone or makes them disappear, it's actually a very strategic move. We forget that. It's not as senseless as it seems. It's a way to silence someone, but also it's a way to silence their family as well, out of fear, and society by extension. "
Hisham Matar
Fear
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" As part of the ritual of becoming a man, my maternal uncle, a judge, and his four sons, each older than me, took me deer hunting. "
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Love
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" 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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" 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. "
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