“My Friends” is an unforgettable journey across the bridges of exile

In his latest novel, “My Friends,” which readers have been waiting for for 13 years, Hisham Matar opens a series of literary doors in a work that lies in the heart of a Libyan soul lost between homelands. It takes us on a unique journey across time and space, and presents a contemplative and poignant picture of the meaning of asylum and friendship in light of… Migration, political and cultural transformations.

Matar excels in presenting an experience full of emotions, suspense, and historical details, linking fateful moments in the lives of his novel’s characters and turning points in Libyan politics, and transporting us to a completely new land, to a world saturated with emotions and historical details, where imagination blends with reality with rare seamlessness.

Khaled and his two friends…a story of asylum and friendship

The novel embodies the Libyan conflict through the character of Khaled, a young man who leaves his homeland in 1983 to study in Scotland, but finds himself the following year in front of the Libyan embassy in St. James Square in London, participating in a protest against the Gaddafi regime with his friend Mustafa.

The two young men were among the demonstrators who were shot by embassy officials, and from this tragic moment the transformation in his life begins, and Matar excels in portraying the profound impact of this catastrophic event on the life path of his characters, as asylum becomes their inevitable fate, and Khaled immediately knows that he will not be able to… Return to Libya as long as Gaddafi is in power.

After receiving treatment for several weeks in the hospital in a room monitored by the police, the two young men recover, but Khaled’s uncertainty about whether he was photographed during the protest or whether there were sources in the hospital cooperating with the Libyan security forces raises suspicions that he may have been targeted.

Khaled appears as a person facing the struggles of immigration, when he obtains political asylum and finds himself making his way in building a new life in London that lasts for 32 years, not knowing whether he can return to his homeland. Khaled’s fears increase as he does not know if his family is aware of what happened, and he is certain that his letters and phone calls are being monitored, which means that he cannot even explain why he has not returned.

The novel deals largely with Khaled’s deep and sometimes tense relationship with Mustafa and Hossam, a writer who appears in the opening of the novel whose stories deal with the Libyan regime symbolically. Khaled met him as a child when one of his stories was read instead of a news bulletin on BBC Arabic Radio.

Although the list of friends also includes Rana and Saad, the focus is on the trio Khaled, Hossam, and Mustafa, and Matar’s review of the relationship and distance between these three is a careful study of the friendship between exiles, the delicately intertwined ways in which the friends’ souls are intertwined, and the pain resulting from their failure.

Despite his torment due to being away from his family, Khaled relies on his friends to continue. “Friends,” he says, “what a wonderful word that most people randomly use to describe people they barely know, when it is a description of something wonderful.”

The power of personal decisions and transformations in the face of challenges is evident, and the novel opens windows to explore the impact of migration on individual identity and belonging.

Matar shines in narrating the details of the incident that turns the lives of its heroes upside down and puts them at a fateful crossroads, and in describing the harsh reality of migration and the fear of return, which is rooted in Khaled’s life, as the choice of asylum and distance from the homeland appear in their bright colors in the spirit of the novel, with emphasis On the impact of this decision on identity and belonging.

“My Friends” opens new horizons for understanding the enormous impact of immigration on individual identity, how a single incident can force a person to irreversibly change the course of his life, and how the three young men realize over time that they are unable to form happy families, because everything in their lives is temporary. A connection to love will mean a connection to migration.

It is true that “My Friends” is a book about migration, violence, and grief, but above all, as the title indicates, it is a study in friendship. Khaled loves his two friends, but they do not always like him. He monitors their rivalries and is hurt when they exclude him. He often comes across as arrogant, but his honesty when he remembers what these two friends mean to him gives this quiet book a poignant and remarkable power.

A unique narrative style and manipulation of time and place

The novel begins at its end when Hossam and Khaled, who have reached middle age, separate, and the former goes to live in California, while Mustafa is in Libya with the militias. Khaled, who acts as narrator, accompanies Hossam to the train and sees him off at St. Pancras station.

Matar skillfully manipulates time and place, telling the story in a non-sequential manner, moving between the present and the past, adding an unusual depth to the story and giving the reader a unique experience. The author shows the impact of technology in communications on the lives of the characters, who find themselves immersed in the Libyan monitoring and surveillance network. Matar captures this aspect brilliantly, showing the long-term and disturbing impact of political conditions on personal life and how the transformations of migration and revolution are intertwined.

The strength of the novel’s language lies in its simplicity. For example, it talks about the idea of ​​building a new house in a place that means a lot to you, but you can never leave it. The narration does not delve much into real historical places and events. Although Khaled’s birthplace, Benghazi, is linked in the minds of Westerners to modern political events, Matar seems to be trying to revive this city and return it in time to be a homeland to which his hero belongs.

The ambition of “My Friends” is evident in its opening chapters, which move between the past and the present and introduce the reader to a character who does not appear again until approximately halfway through the novel. The narrative begins in 2016 in London, told by Khad, who grew up under the rule of Muammar Gaddafi, when journalists were shot in the streets or tortured. Many of them fled to London, which was “in a way where Arab writers came to die.”

Keeping a central character behind the curtain for a long time requires great courage from the writer, but the unexpected dramatic meeting between Hossam and Khaled in the middle of the book in Paris in 1995 was worth the wait.

Dividing the novel into 108 very short chapters was a clever technique, intended to arouse the reader’s curiosity and motivate him to continue reading the story. This precise division creates a unique rhythm that makes the reader feel easy to follow the events, while at the same time keeping him tense and eager to know what will happen in the next chapter.

The short chapters enable the reader to experience the progress of the story in a rapid and exciting way, which maintains his interest and draws his attention. The effective use of this division also contributes to giving a dramatic and exciting character to the novel, and highlights the writer’s skill in controlling the rhythm of events and directing the reader’s attention effectively, which creates an experience Fun and exciting read.

The rhythm of events varies throughout the novel’s 456 pages, slowing down to a halt sometimes to highlight moments of intense experience, then accelerating to allow time to pass and showing the events of marriage, births, and deaths in short flashes. There are many very realistic details of phone calls, letters, and conversations that take place while walking in the streets or eating meals, but the narrative fabric changes to include dreams, visions, and Hossam’s imaginative writings.

A balance between imagination and historical accuracy

“My Friends” strikes a perfect balance between fictional events and historical details. Matar presents a unique vision of the Arab revolutions, explores their effects on the lives of the main characters, and professionally integrates historical events, especially during the outbreak of the Arab Spring, as Khaled and his friends must make decisive decisions that reflect the stakes of the revolution and the profound impact of political transformations on the paths of personal life.

The realistic places and events in the novel “My Friends” add a new dimension to the details of the lives of the three men who live in London far from their homeland. The third in this group and the oldest is the writer Hossam.

One of his stories, which symbolically promotes defiance and rebellion against the Gaddafi regime, is read on BBC Arabic radio in the voice of Libyan broadcaster Muhammad Mustafa Ramadan. A short time later, the broadcaster was assassinated after leaving Friday prayers at the Regent’s Park Mosque in London. This assassination, just like the shooting at the embassy, ​​actually happened. Matar inserts his fictional characters into historical paintings, giving these public events the realism of a personal experience.

Bringing the reader back to the real protest incident in London and the assassination of Muhammad Mustafa Ramadan add a strong realistic character to the novel that prompts the reader to contemplate the consequences of such events through Khaled’s journey, who faces its repercussions for decades.

Friendship at stake…a deep study in human relationships

Matar presents an accurate and in-depth study of the dynamics of friendship relationships. He shows how friendships are affected by distance and political changes, and how belonging is intertwined with identity in the context of migration. He transparently draws human relationships and the intermingling of emotions and challenges that friends face under the circumstances of life in the diaspora, and reflects on the impact of geographical distance and the passage of time. on these relationships.

It must be noted that the life of the writer, who won the Pulitzer Prize in 2017 for his book “The Return,” was subjected to severe turmoil at the hands of this movement, as his family left Libya in 1979, and his father, who was a prominent opponent of the Gaddafi regime, was kidnapped and handed over to the regime’s forces. And its effect eventually disappears. Matar moved to London around the same time as Khaled, the novel’s hero, moved there. His previous acclaimed works have described his father’s imprisonment in Colonel Muammar Gaddafi’s dictatorship and the decades-long search for his fate.

The contents of these books were shocking, but their style was calm, which made them more effective in confronting cruelty not with angry language, but with moving language. “My Friends” has the same delicate and emotional yet rational and bold sensibility.

The novel reviews the formation of the friendship of these three young men, their distance, their meeting again, and then their separation forever. We even learn about their childhood, but the main narrative begins with the 1984 incident in front of the Libyan embassy.

After the outbreak of the so-called “Arab Spring,” Khaled must decide – as Hisham Matar himself had to – whether to return to Libya. Mustafa and Hossam face the same confusion. The novel is credited with its ability to make their different decisions reasonable, despite their painful impact. When the revolutionary moment tests these friends, their responses are unexpected.

Mustafa, the elegant and sarcastic real estate agent, becomes a warrior while Hossam once again falls in love with homeland and Arab poetry, while Khaled, the humble teacher, makes what may be the bravest decision, accepting the humble life he has created for himself in London.

“My Friends” is not just a novel, but rather a literary masterpiece that deals deeply with human issues, leaving the reader immersed in intertwined worlds of friendship, migration, and revolutions. This release is considered a distinguished addition to Matar’s repertoire, and a confirmation of his excellence in exploring human experiences with his wonderful and unique style and his exceptional skills in embodying the spirit of asylum and the oscillation between emotions, historical transformations, and radical changes. It is a book that narrates with perfect craftsmanship the story of man in the face of turmoil and the search for identity in light of revolutions and migration, and a deep and influential vision in the worlds of contemporary Libya, giving the reader a unique and profound experience similar to a literary adventure that leaves an unforgettable impact on him.

As Muhammad Mustafa Ramadan says in the novel, “Sometimes, a work of fiction is more relevant than the facts.”