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My Friends

Booker Prize Longlisted 2024

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My Friends

Written by: Hisham Matar
Narrated by: Hisham Matar
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Brought to you by Penguin.

A masterful, intensely moving novel about three friends living in political exile and the emotional homeland that deep friendships can provide - from the Booker-shortlisted, Pulitzer prize-winning author of THE RETURN

Khaled and Mustafa meet at university in Edinburgh: two Libyan eighteen-year-olds expecting to return home after their studies. In a moment of recklessness and courage, they travel to London to join a demonstration in front of the Libyan embassy. When government officials open fire on protestors in broad daylight, both friends are wounded, and their lives forever changed.

Over the years that follow, Khaled, Mustafa and their friend Hosam, a writer, are bound together by their shared history. If friendship is a space to inhabit, theirs becomes small and inhospitable when a revolution in Libya forces them to choose between the lives they have created in London and the lives they left behind.

'I have always admired Matar's tender and compassionate but equally strong and compelling voice' Elif Shafak

©2024 Hisham Matar (P)2024 Penguin Audio

 Friendship Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Political Relationships
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Critic Reviews

A deeply touching, beautifully composed book
I have always admired Matar's tender and compassionate but equally strong and compelling voice (Elif Shafak)
My Friends is a brilliant novel about innocence and experience, about friendship, family and exile. It makes clear, once more, that Hisham Matar is a supremely talented novelist.
Hisham Matar's MY FRIENDS recounts an exile's life shattered by violence, yet sustained, fiercely if complicatedly, by friendship. An unforgettable novel -- wise, urgent and profound -- from one of our era's great writers.
It is impossible to describe the profound depth and beauty of this book. MY FRIENDS is a breathtaking novel, every page a miracle and an affirmation. If there is a language of exile, MY FRIENDS is what it sounds like: exquisite and painful, compassionate and unflinching, and above all, overwhelming in its boundless hope that within exile rests a path towards a different kind of return. One that leads us back to ourselves. Hisham is one of our greatest writers, how lucky we are to be in his midst.
'I could not love this book more. Reflective, compelling, deeply tender at times, there are surprising shifts and turns and moments of utter brilliance where new understanding blooms. A walk across London from King’s Cross Station to Shepherd's Bush gives rise to memories of a life diverted by a moment of political action. About friendship, exile, belonging, lives lived and not lived, and Libya's recent past, London emerges as a place of refuge, a transitory half-home even after three decades, a stepping stone. As soon as I finished, I started again beguiled by Matar’s long, sinuous sentences and enlivened by my new knowledge of what it was all about, my heart moving in my chest. My Friends is the most beautiful, complete, masterful novel I have read in a long time. Read it.' (Priscilla Morris, author of the Women's Prize shortlisted BLACK BUTTERFLIES)
Tender, precise, and incredibly moving, MY FRIENDS is a rare novel, holding so much of the human heart that it is at times unbearably real. It’s impossible to read this book without feeling a renewed connection to the world and all its intricate sorrow and love. (Seán Hewitt, author of ALL DOWN DARKNESS WIDE)
Poignant and quietly suspenseful... Readers encountering Matar for the first time will find in “My Friends” a masterly literary meditation on his lifelong themes. For those who already know his work, the effect is amplified tenfold. (New York Times)
Meditative yet propulsive – as well as structurally inventive – the narrative puts us in Khaled’s mind as he walks across his adopted city while reflecting on youth, exile and the flashpoints of Libya’s recent history (Mail on Sunday)
All stars
Most relevant
Loved the content, intent and it's contemporary relevance. Enjoyed the narrative and narration. Highly recommended.

Brilliant

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Great narration and moving account of the vicissitudes of three friends through a turbulent period of Libyan history

Great Libyan Historical Story

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I enjoyed the listen particularly because the narration was excellent and the writing style has a lot of depth. But the story goes nowhere. 3 libiyan origin youngsters participate in a demonstration in front of the Libiyan embassy in London. Two of them are shot and obtain political asylum. The book revolves around how this incident affects their lives. The premise shows a lot of promise, but the story goes nowhere and the main character remains stunted in terms of character development- too traumatised to move forward. However, one thing must be acknowledged- the book was exceptionally realistic on how such events could affect a person.

Spolier:
One lives a secluded life in London, never returning home- perpetually traumatised, one becomes emboldened towards the cause, and the last is a mix of both.

Skippable, the author may surely have better works.

Great writing, little substance

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