126 Quotes by Hisham Matar

There is a tendency to over-exaggerate and over-romanticise the place of a writer in a revolution. That bothers me. I think it's inappropriate.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.