The Return (Pulitzer Prize Winner): Fathers, Sons and the Land in Between Paperback – April 4, 2017

Heart-ful story written with aplomb. This is a gifted writer with a story that has now been told. It needs to be rested.

When Muammar Gaddafi took over as a dictator in Libya, he ordered that his opponents be rounded up and imprisoned. Hisham Matar was nineteen when most of the male members of his family were disappeared, uncles, cousins and his father. They were imprisoned in the most notorious prison, Abu Salim where torture and interrogations were the norm along with deprivation of food and any comforts. Most lived there for over twenty years and were only released with the overthrow of Gaddaffi and his government. Matar's father, Jaballah, was never heard from again although it is suspected that he was one of the over one thousand men who were killed one day by firing squad at the prison.This book tells the story of Matar's return to Libya after living his life in Egypt and England. He reunites with his male relatives and uses whatever connections he has to try to get a definite answer about his father. Was he killed that day? Is he still imprisoned?Although one hears about cases like this, only the concrete recollections of someone who has lost a relative and gone through years of agony trying to find the answers brings it home in such a definite way. This memoir won the Pulitzer Prize and Matar has been listed for the Booker several times, including this year. His love and his search is inspiring while the understanding of what those men went through for twenty years, losing the best years of their lives and their dreams of how their lives would turn out is heartbreaking. This book is recommended for nonfiction readers.

I knew when and where. I was 14. I was taking care of, and hiding the fear from, my 9-year-old sister. But my mother hated me. Every birthday she told me another way I had ruined her life. She hated that my father loved me. She hated that I loved him. Was she just telling me that to get revenge on me? Do Kiera tell the truth once in awhile?

Interesting as recent history of Libya but too detailed because things that interest author because his relations etc too much for ordinary reader - weighs the book down. While highly praised and prize winning I felt it didn't say anything new about 'returning' everyone who has left their own country and lived elsewhere whether as an exile or as an ex-pat experiences a lot of what Matar experiences. His is intensified by disappearance of his father and terrible torturing etc under Gadaffi but probably no worse than what it is like for hundreds of thousands of current refugees. He was lucky because he went to England for an education and had contacts and one assumes was able to make a living. But good to read thinking of current stateless people.

An account of the grief for a beloved father, imprisoned in Libya. His death was never confirmed. He was disappeared. The love and suffering of the family left behind, and the struggle for the truth, is narrated with such sensitivity and intelligence that the unique becomes universal.

I found the prose of this book to be mesmerizing though by midway…the exhaustive lengthiness of each though process became burdensom….and frankly I was hoping for some answer at the ending.

The book starts off like an oil painting layering as it goes. The authors deep painful almost numbing of the soul is palpable. One becomes like a brother to Hisham and somehow you stand in a line with many others holding his hand. The world is indeed such an evil place but in the end he saved some of his relatives who were dear to his father and he exposed the horrible truth. His father would have been proud and you feel his father between the sentences. Our deep love and prayers are with you my brother.

A personal account of how one family was affected by its patriarch's involvement in the opposition of the Qaddafi regime. My interest was maintained throughout. However, I was more interested in Libya's journey from colonialism under fascist Italy to the present and how it affected Matar's extended family than his visits to European museums and the like even though the latter was written with a literary flair. It gave me better context for my experiences during my visits to Libya before the Arab spring, an understanding of why people were too guarded to discuss politics, and the heavy security presence by the regime. But more than anything it is a testimony of love written by a son seeking closure who was robbed from a chance to say goodbye.