Hisham Matar Meet the Author

Hisham Matar Has written two books exploring the tragedy of Libya where

his family was torn apart in the Gaddafi revolution and where his

father disappeared. In his new book The Return, he tells the haunting

story of his own attempt to find out what happened to his father, was he

perhaps still alive in prison, if not, how did he die? It's a journey

into the heart of a broken country through public deceit and violence

and an intensely personal story that is also a plea for humanity and

decency. Welcome. Having dealt fictionally with

aspects of the Libyan tragedy, do you think it was inevitable at some

point that you would tell a story directly that was even more

personal? You know, when I went to Libya in 2012 after the fall of

Gaddafi it was the first time I went back after 33 years so there is this

place that has preoccupied me on so many levels for my life and finally

I was there and the feeling was that I was being submerged and the only

way I could come up for air was to write so I kept a notebook and wrote

every day and when I got back home for the first time in my life, I did

not write a word for two or three months. I was silenced by the

experience of being there for a month. Re-engaging with the place,

my family, trying to find out what had happened to my father. And then

I started writing. And it was really the beginning of this book, The

Return. It is about the search for your father and we can say, though

there are elements of mystery here which people find... Almost

thrilling although the terrible, but there is no easy resolution at the

end of the book. We can say that. Nonetheless, did you get consolation

despite the fact that the central question was never fully answered

question mark this is why I wrote it. I wrote it because I wanted a

space to think about this, this fate, the fact that, you know, you

lose your father in a way that is inconclusive, you don't know where

he is, the foam and Mark -- final moments, where he might be, etc, is

unique. It is not totally unique in the sense that we all share some

common ground is with not knowing our father completely, I use the

book to think about that. And the violence that engulfed him, set

against a regime entered into prison, you assume you talk to

prisoners and you and pick some of the horrors that attended semi-lives

in Libya throughout your lifetime and you knew much of it before you

began, you how dreadful it was, you dealt with these things in fiction

before but coming across them with respect to own family again and

deliberately uncovering the story piece by piece or trying to, must

have been a profound experience. It was profound but peculiar because I

felt lucky... I felt lucky to be able to write the book, I felt lucky

the book was in my life and I had the tools to work with it, my

approach even to the material was the approach of an artist, I am

thinking of form and ideas and history so when I say I am lucky, I

am lucky in the sense that nobody chooses his books, the books choose

the right and this was like an incredibly strong horse that always

felt its abilities and appetites felt beyond my own abilities and

appetite so it stretched me in now way. These things matter in the book

and the experience of being in Libya but also throughout the years is an

experience that could really submerge you. It is almost like

somebody, history has you by the neck and is drowning you. As a

writer, and as an artist, if you could some of that there is a whiff

of a feeling success. It is unusual to read a memoir which disses in

which you meet your fathers enemies, those who run the country and try to

discover what they did to him, what was done to him in their name, this

is an unusual set of circumstances. Yes, sitting with a man whose father

abducted your father... Gaddafi s son. And most probably killed my

father and also the man I am sitting with his entire power, the clothes

on his back were burnt by the deeds of the regime so it is a complex

situation but it is the situation exactly because it is complex, you

must not collapse it you must always at that moment sitting with a human

being. Inevitably, forgiveness of rises. Yes, because in some way if

you ask me how to put out the fire, the fire is going to be put out by

revenge, it would put up a justice. Yes, but also a recognition of the

crime. And with it a genuine sense of remorse. I felt at that moment a

sitting that my fate was easier than his. On some level it is easy being

my father s son. He was a good man, he was brave, he stood for his

principles it is far more complicated in the sum of Gaddafi.

That was interesting. You have the sadness and pain of loss but you

have the pride of a life you believe was honestly and well lived. Yeah,

in the book I put it but one thing I said to him was my father is my

crown. It is nothing he can or the regime can give me that would take

all adds to that. There is a fallacy about things closing, somehow one

comes to some sort of tidy resolution and can pack away the

past and put it away. It is learning to cope. Yes, and one thing the book

is interested in is the nature of grief, perhaps we have missed

something in our modern times with the value of a genuine engagement

with grief. Always the point is to find the place of grace. Where you

can be attentive to the past... And at the same time free. Hisham Matar,

thank you very much. Thank you.