I used to believe that it was not possible to lose someone I loved without sensing it somehow, without feeling something shift. But it’s not true. People can die, sometimes the closest people to us, without us noticing a thing. Hisham Matar Read Quote
I’ve never been particularly interested in genre distinctions. They seem to me more useful to a librarian than to a writer. Hisham Matar Read Quote
I used to be a keen rider. Sometimes I could sense what a horse liked or preferred to do. Hisham Matar Read Quote
I’ve always said – I’ve always said I’m not, by temperament, a romantic about revolutions or given to revolutions. I’ve always thought that they are not the ideal way to change. Hisham Matar Read Quote
My family settled in Cairo in 1980. I was nine. I missed Libya terribly, but I also took to Cairo. I perfected the accent. People assumed I was Egyptian. Hisham Matar Read Quote
In Libya, I did well at school because I was clever. In Egyptian public school, I got the highest marks for the basest of reasons. And in the American school, I struggled. Everything – mathematics, the sciences, pottery, swimming – had to be conducted in a language I hardly knew and that was neither spoken in the streets nor at home. Hisham Matar Read Quote
Nothing makes you feel more stupid than learning a new language. You lose your confidence. You want to disappear. Not be noticed. Say as little as possible. Hisham Matar Read Quote
Turgenev’s achievement lies in how he succeeded, in spite of himself, his country, and his time, in exempting his work from public duty. This has given it that unnameable quality that makes every sentence true, every silence trustworthy. Hisham Matar Read Quote
Gaddafi tried to give a masterclass to men like the Syrian dictator, Bashar al-Assad, on how to crush a civilian uprising. Hisham Matar Read Quote
