"Then, just before he walked off, he said, "Stay here." meaning, I suppose, that I should not walk with him. But the way he spoke those two words echoed the time when he had returned to Libya and I had refused to accompany him, unwilling or unable to go back home, "Reluctant Khaled." as he and Mustafa took to calling me during the wild passions of those days of the revolution, when my only two Libyan friends turned into men of action.
"Stay here," he said again, and this time it sounded even more like a solicitation of a vow; as though what he was really saying was: promise you will always be here."

I will share a personal take, one that seems quite out of line with the majority of readers of this novel. I consistently felt the narrative voice of the novel was weighed down with so much unnecessary roundaboutness that I had trouble caring, even though I know I should care very much, because of the urgency of these times, and because of the urgency of this author's story. And yet I felt the voice was so hesitant and circumspect that even scenes that should have been riveting hit me more like I was stuck on a long bus ride. I don't need flash-bang action verbs in every sentence. But I do need to feel I'm not being told the same thing eleven times in slightly different ways, where one good declarative sentence would do. It also seems to me that the novel would have been stronger if it had begun at ch. 16, and been half as long.

My friends is a heavy read. The story jumps around the timeline of modern Middle East. This is a story of friendship, loyalty, love, identity. It’s a story about the power of words and their ability to heal. It’s a story of exile and ones relationship to his nation and culture. This is a book that is to be read slowly to absorb what it is about and it may require a few re reads to grasp,

Thanks to the publisher for providing the arc via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This was an amazingly beautiful and heartbreaking piece of historical fiction that feels like a memoir. This is a story of exile; of the people and places you leave behind and the people you gain, all in the name of survival. This is also the coming-of-age tale of Khaled, a Libyan born man who finds himself studying abroad at the University of Edinburgh. Violence prevents him from returning home and from even being honest with the people around him. Khaled seeks solace in his two friends, the only people he can be honest with, because they are in the same predicament as him. They understand each other in ways that go beyond their personality differences and together form an unlikely family. This book is deep on so many levels and I don’t think there is anything I can say to accurately depict how I truly feel about everything I just read. This book has lingered in my mind and given me insight into a life I will never live and a time before I can remember. If you’re looking to learn a little bit of history and feel connected with complex characters then, this book is perfect for you. I see awards lists for this book.

My Friends, a riveting and thought provoking novel, takes us on an intimate journey with three men from Libya who find themselves in the UK in the early 1980s. The arc of the narrative follows them from university to demonstrations, from London to Paris to Libya, through and beyond the Arab Spring. The novel explores themes of immigration, exile, political assassinations, dictatorship, and, ultimately, the meaning of "home".

As the conversations turn philosophical, we're witness to their struggles and differences, the three friends responding to the events in Libya in varying ways, staying true to character. Matar frames the novel against the backdrop of real-life people and historical events, adding depth to a novel that is already compelling.

This one will stick with me for awhile, and I'll be seeking out Matar's earlier works.

My thanks to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group for the ARC.

This book was well written and had some beautiful prose, but although I did enjoy reading sections of this book for the quality of the writing, I also struggled to connect with the characters. I think perhaps there was a bit too much about the history and exploring the consequences of that history rather than rich character development for my preference. Although I am giving this book a 4 star rating (which it fully deserves), it was not a good book-fit for me.

"The trick time plays is to lull us into the belief that everything lasts forever, and although nothing does, we continue, inside our dream." If this line is intriguing to you, you should pick up My Friends. My Friends opens with two friends parting potentially forever. We then flash back to our main character, Khaled, a young boy growing up in Benghazi, hearing a story about a man being eaten alive by a cat. Khaled becomes obsessed with this story and the power of words, leading him to befriend the author and setting his life on a new course. He lands at the University of Edinburgh, a world vastly different from Libya. As the Arab Spring erupts, Khaled finds himself torn in so many directions as the book explores friendship, family, loyalty, and what it means to be exiled. 

Overall, I found this book to be absolutely beautiful. It's filled with the wonders of literature, the beauty and the pain that is friendship, and the power and struggle of living authentically. All of this wrapped under commentary on political exile. With a gripping plot and flawed and oh so real characters, My Friends blew me away. It was heartbreaking and beautiful all at the same time, and that is my favorite kind of read. A friend is a wonderous thing, and Matar shows us that in every page. 

I have not read Matar's Pulitizer winning memoir, The Return, but I look forward to picking that up soon. Thanks to the publisher for the chance to review this prior to its publication tomorrow!

Khaled leaves Benghazi to study at the University of Edinburgh. But that is just the start of his journey. He attends a protest against Qaddafi, and that singular action determines his life. The life of an exile, his friends, his family are all impacted by that one singular choice. The author paints a realistic portrait of a Libyan exile, and of the war that tears apart his home country.

I received a complimentary electronic ARC of this excellent novel from Netgalley, author Hisham Matar, and publisher Viking. Thank you all for sharing your hard work with me. I have read My Friends of my own volition, and this review reflects my honest opinion of this work. I am pleased to recommend this work to friends and family.
My Friends reads more like a memoir than a novel, the story is fresh, on point, and the experience is excruciatingly painful to comprehend. Exile is not something any of us would want to endure - we know that now more than ever before. Thank you, Hisham for sharing this reality with us. We get too complacent in our little life nooks. The thought of giving up all that we know and love is painful even to just contemplate. Everybody get out there and VOTE!

My Friends is a really interesting book. It follows several men who emigrated from Libya to London. Due to various events, they are not able to go back to Libya for a number of years and form their own community there. Then when they are older, some of them return to Libya during the Arab Spring. The book is slow at times, but in many places, it reads like poetry. If you don't know much about the events in Libya, the book will teach you a lot. I'll be thinking about this one for a while.

A melancholy meditation on exile and friendship. Hisham manages to escape the totalitarian grip of Libya when he gets a scholarship to Edinburgh University but it's not that simple. His friend Mustafa, the only other actual scholar in the group of Libyan students (the others being watchers) persuades him to attend a protest at the Libyan Embassy in London- a decision that changes both their lives after Khaled is shot. Woven throughout is the relationship Hisham builds with Hosam, a writer whose work has inspired him even as it enraged the regime. This moves between London, Edinburgh, Paris, and, of course, Libya in a meandering way. And then there's 2011 and the revolution, There are plot threads that pop in and out and seem unresolved (such a Khaled's relationship with a woman which feels as though there needed to be a female character) and times when this sags. It does, however, offer insight into the difficulty faced by exiled opponents of a brutal regime. Thanks to netgalley for the ARC. An interesting read for fans of literary fiction.

A very touching story about the ramifications of dictatorship on innocents. The scenery and relationship descriptions are beautiful and sometimes heartbreaking. I appreciated being in England, Paris, and Libya. Getting to know Kahled and his friends. Thinking about life in the 80’s. Thank you NetGalley for the ARC.

A young man must forge a new path when one decision upends his life.

Khaled grew up in the city of Benghazi in Libya during the years when the country was ruled by Qaddafi. His father, a school teacher, was highly educated but realized that it was better not to pursue lofty professional goals in a country under such an oppressive ruler. The family regularly listened to broadcasts from the BBC Arabic station, and one day during his teenage years something unusual happened. The broadcaster, Mohammed Mustafa Ramadan, read aloud not the news but a short story written by a young Libyan named Hosam Zola who was studying at Trinity College in Dublin. The story, unusual and with undertones of anti-government sentiment, inspired Khaled to want to study literature abroad, and a few years later in 1983 he was lucky enough to win one of the government’s scholarships to do just that. He headed off to the University of Edinburg and met other Libyan students there, including Mustafa, a former student of his father’s. He became aware that there were embedded amongst the Libyan students those who had been tasked with keeping tabs on the actions of others; those who did not act in accordance with the LIbyan government’s views could quickly find themselves sent back home to LIbya or worse. Yet when, in the aftermath of the rounding up and imprisoning of university students back in Libya, a protest is scheduled to take place outside the Libyan embassy in London, Khaled is persuaded by Mustafa to travel down to be there. Despite not being terribly political himself, Khaled finds himself in the very thick of the protest and both he and Mustafa are injured when people inside the embassy start shooting at the protesters. In that moment, the trajectory of Khaled’s life is forever altered. He dares not either return to the university, where the timing of his absence and his injuries will surely reveal to the student “spies” that he was involved in the protest, nor does he dare return home lest his involvement is already suspected and he and his family will suffer because of it. His life is now one in exile, from his homeland and to a large degree from his family as well. Khaled cobbles together a life with the help of friends he has made and will continue to make, including Hosam Zola himself, as the country from which he is exiled goes through its own changes.
My Friends is both a beautifully written novel and a piercing portrayal of life for those under an oppressive regime and those who have fled it. The author, whose own family ran afoul of Qaddafi and fled Libya for Egypt, has much from which to draw as he tells the story of Khaled, the accidental exile. From the government campaign to silence journalists critical of the Qaddafi regime through targeted murders, as happens to the BBC broadcaster in this novel, to the acceptance that as there is always someone listening in to what you say whether talking among friends in a dormitory or chatting with your family on the phone, a level of care must be taken to ensure that one doesn’t attract the wrong attention, life in such places is very different from what most people experience in the West. The reader comes to know Khaled and his friends well, how each approaches their lives in exile and their different views upon and actions taken during the Arab Spring and the Libyan revolution. Even the eventual removal of Qaddafi from the leadership of Libya does not mean that life for any of these men can return to normal. The choices they have made and the roles they have assumed continue to alter the course of their lives. I was thoroughly entranced throughout this novel, at times feeling like I was at the feet of Scheherazade hearing tales of family, love and loss. This novel is one that will appeal to readers of authors like MIchael Cunningham, whose gift of language makes reading such a pleasure, as well as those of writers like Claire Messud and Téa Obreht who bring to life other parts of the world. Many thanks to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group for allowing me access to an advanced reader’s copy of this beautiful novel.

This was engrossing. It’s a quiet book on the surface, but so much happened underneath. It’s the story of a young Libyan man who goes to Edinburgh to study. On a trip to London with a friend, he becomes involved in a demonstration about his home country. Thereafter, he is unable to return to his old life, and continues to live in London. Through knowing him and his friends, the Arab Spring came to life intimately.

The novel is the beautiful, melancholy, political, and personal story of three Libyan men both inside and outside their home country from the late 70's through the years following the Arab Spring and the fall of Qaddafi. As a reader, we learn what it is like to live under a tyrannical regime where those brave enough to oppose the regime are silenced. All three have engaged in political acts. Hosam writes a political allegory that is read in place of the news one night on the BBC-sponsored Arabic radio station. This story captivates the narrator of the novel, Khaled, who later goes to study at the University of Edinburgh and at the urging of his much more politically fearless friend Mustafa, attends the protest at the Libyan Embassy in London in 1984 and, along with Mustafa, is seriously wounded when the embassy soldiers open fire. Khaled tells us the story as he walks through London after saying goodbye to Hosam, for what he thinks will be the last time.

These early actions shape and resonate through the lives of the three friends over the succeeding thirty years. Most poignantly, these actions keep all three friends in a constant state of fear and also make it impossible to connect with their families except on tapped phone lines and through censured letters. The author uses this history to explore what it means to be without a home and the challenges of building lasting relationships, What does one owe one's family, one's country, one's friends? While Mustafa is a more a man of action, what grounds the narrator and Hosam is their love of literature--a connection formed from the reading/hearing of that early allegory. Literature also connects Khaled with his father. It is a novel of stasis--Khaled stays in the same apartment for thirty years--unlike Hosam and Mustafa he does not return to fight with the resistance in 2011. It is also a novel about violent action and its aftermath--the protest, the assassination of a prominent BBC broadcaster, and the capture of Qaddaffi. But it seems to be mostly about the loss of deep connections--to homeland and family and what that does to the friends over the course of their lives. Matar's book is both intellectual and emotional. He approaches his characters critically but with immense empathy.

MY FRIENDS
Hisham Matar

This is my first time reading Hisham Matar and it won't be my last.

In MY FRIENDS we are following Khaled throughout his lifetime. From his young life and then to separating himself from his family, becoming a protestor, and then beginning a new life amidst a personal tragedy. All along the way, and to varying degrees, he has his friends, and the book is as much about them as it is about Khaled.

I once was told that sometimes two people can receive or download an idea for a book at the same time. This book, MY FRIENDS, could only have been written by Matar at this time with his experiences and his mastery of language.

It could only have been written from a place of understanding and gratitude. A thankfulness for life and those you spend living it with.

MY FRIENDS is unique in its origination. Matar carries language differently and expresses himself uniquely so. Every third sentence was an aha moment. I was struck by his insightfulness and won over by his clarity of thought.

MY FRIENDS is about the important role your friends play in your life. How sometimes friendships can be far more significant than others. Especially at times when we can be more impressionable than is personally safe.

MY FRIENDS is filled with romantic notions of dying for what you believe in, living for what you'd die for, and writing like your soul is on fire.

I loved this book and felt inspired to investigate Matar’s backlist. Have you heard of Hisham Matar? You have now! MY FRIENDS comes out tomorrow where books are sold. You should pick it up!

Thanks to Netgalley, Random House Publishing Group - Random House, and Random House for the advanced copy and for putting this on my radar!

MY FRIENDS…⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Beautiful writing. It was a pleasure to read My Friends and spend time with Khaled and his insights, longing, regrets, and reminiscences. The writing was clear and full of emotion. I thought the pacing was slow in the best, most luxurious way. A literary treat!

Thank you very much to Random House and NetGalley for the opportunity to read a copy.

My Friends by Hisham Matar is a deeply profound, thought provoking and troubling book written about life in Libya under the reign of Muammar Gaddafi. It is a personal character study illuminating the inner life of an exiled Libyan man living in London as he experiences the glory of family and friends and the devastation of tyranny. I would like to thank Netgalley, the publisher and the author for providing me with a review copy in exchange for my honest and unbiased opinion of this book.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning and Booker short-listed author Hisham Matar returns with a novel about friendship set against the backdrop of Muammar Qaddafi’s reign of terror in Libya. In 1980, 14 year old Khalid Abd al Hady is listening to the BBC Arabic World Service with his family in Benghazi when the radio host, Mohammad Mustafa Ramadan (who is assassinated a month later by the Libyan government which hs targeted journalists), reads a short story by Hosam Zowa. It was this tale, and Professor Walbrooks’ meditation on the “infidelities of translation,” that led Khalid to attend college in Edinburgh despite his parents’ concern that if you left Libya in 1983, “there would be few reasons why you would want to return.”

Feeling the weight of the regime’s gaze on his back, paranoia impacted his relationships, but Khalid feels comfortable befriending another Libyan student, Mustafa, who had studied at the school where Khalid’s father had served as headmaster. Khalid and Mustafa recklessly attend a demonstration in front of the Libyan Embassy in London where eleven Libyan students are shot and a policewoman is killed by Qaddafi troops. Khalid and Mustafa suffer grievous injuries from which they recover, but April 17, 1984 was the date that Khalid “was forever thereafter a marked man with limited opportunities.”

Because Khalid is unable to return to Libya, and is stranded in a foreign city where he knows few, he ponders whether it is possible to have a happy life away from one’s home and one’ family. His friendship with Mustafa endures, and then Khalid meets Hosam when Khalid is 29 years old. Hosam forms the “third in their triangle.” Khalid builds a fragile life over 27 years in England but, at 45 years old, unmarried, childless, and living in a rented flat, he is left unsettled and ashamed by the fall of the regime and his failure to return to Libya unlike his friends who were proving themselves on the battlefield.

Matar has crafted a novel about friendship, exile and alienation. In his nonlinear exploration of friendship, Matar drops hints about his characters’ future and then circles back to fill in the details. For example, the reader learns early in the novel that Hosam does not stay with his English girlfriend Claire but, rather, marries and has a child with his cousin, Malak, and they start a new life in America. “My Friends” is intimate, modest and so unassuming that you might overlook its artistry. Although at times ponderous, it is deeply affecting. Thank you Random House and Net Galley for providing me with an ARC of this important novel.

This beautifully written novel explores the life of one man after he makes one fateful decision that impacts the remainder of his life and his ability to return to his home country. The friendships in this book are varied and complicated and affected by life in exile from their home countries. Khaled is a compelling and believable character and I wanted to keep reading about his life in London. The writing is exquisite and I highlighted so many sentences throughout the book. I am so glad to end the year with this book. Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an advance review copy.

A moving story of life, family, friendships, politics. A wonderfully written account of Khaled’s life and how so many events affected him personally and his relationships. Even though it's fiction, rtis reads like a historical memoir. I learned quite a bit about Libya. Thank you NetGalley for providing the ARC.