In the Country of Men: Summary and book reviews of In the Country of Men by Hisham Matar, plus links to an excerpt from In the Country of Men and a biography of Hisham Matar.
In the Country of Men
by Hisham Matar
Hardcover: Jan 2007,
256 pages.
Paperback: Feb 2008,
256 pages.
Libya, 1979. Nine-year-old Suleiman’s days are circumscribed by the narrow rituals of childhood: outings to the ruins surrounding Tripoli, games with friends played under the burning sun, exotic gifts from his father’s constant business trips abroad. But his nights have come to revolve around his mother’s increasingly disturbing bedside stories full of old family bitterness. And then one day Suleiman sees his father across the square of a busy marketplace, his face wrapped in a pair of dark sunglasses. Wasn’t he supposed to be away on business yet again? Why is he going into that strange building with the green shutters? Why did he lie?
Suleiman is soon caught up in a world he cannot hope to understand—where the sound of the telephone ringing becomes a portent of grave danger; where his mother frantically burns his father’s cherished books; where a stranger full of sinister questions sits outside in a parked car all day; where his best friend’s father can disappear overnight, next to be seen publicly interrogated on state television.
In the Country of Men is a stunning depiction of a child confronted with the private fallout of a public nightmare. But above all, it is a debut of rare insight and literary grace.
Labeled by some as the "Libyan Kite Runner", In The Country of Men does share some similarities with Khaled Hosseini's runaway bestseller in that both are about young boys growing up in countries experiencing political implosion, with the result that their boy-sized mistakes take on adult-sized consequences; but Matar's prose is leaner than Hosseini's, and his themes share more with Ian McEwan's Atonement than with The Kite Runner. Matar's writing is arrestingly evocative, blending raw emotion with tiny, seemingly incongruous details seen through the eyes of a child, details that serve to fill the adult reader, who can interpret what the child sees in the wider context, with fear as he or she picks up the traces of impending doom lurking behind the innocuous. (Reviewed by BookBrowse Review Team).
The New York Times - Lorraine Adams
In interviews and in his writing, he maintains a public composure. As a novelist, his self-control is impressive.
Miami Herald
A remarkably perceptive and affecting portrait of a young boy's premature political awakening.... [Matar] expertly builds an atmosphere of palpable tension, and though this novel never delves directly into politics, the menacing pall cast by political tyranny looms over the proceedings.
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Graceful.... Quietly, but with the insistence of a tolling bell, Matar lays bare for Suleiman both public and private worlds of overlapping male power, role models, standards and styles. At its intimate center, the novel calibrates the boy's shifting, decreasingly innocent perspective as he himself becomes implicated by cruelty and betrayal.
The Washington Post's Book World
Though set in one of the world's most peculiar, most despotic countries, this sad, beautiful novel captures the universal tragedy of children caught in their parents' terrors.
Miami Herald
A remarkably perceptive and affecting portrait of a young boy's premature political awakening.... [Matar] expertly builds an atmosphere of palpable tension, and though this novel never delves directly into politics, the menacing pall cast by political tyranny looms over the proceedings.
Booklist - Deborah Donovan
Matar tells a gripping and shocking tale that illuminates the personal facet of a national nightmare.
Library Journal
Beautifully written...intimate, realistic, and heartbreaking scenes. Highly recommended.
Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Matar wrests beauty from searing dread and loss.
School Library Journal
Well written, with evocative descriptions of heat and landscape that intensify readers' experience, the story lingers long after the book is closed. Teens serious about understanding the complex nature of patriotism will find much to ponder here.
Libya is located on the
Mediterranean coast in the North of
Africa to the West of Egypt (map).
Much of the country lies within the
Sahara Desert but the coastal areas have
a Mediterranean climate with arable land
in the plateaus. The earliest known
settlers of the area were the Berber
people, known as Libyans to the Greeks.
Around the 7th century BC the maritime
culture known as Phoenicians or
Canaanites colonized the eastern section
of the country which they called
Cyrenaica; and the Greeks colonized the
west, which they called Tripolitania.
Both parts eventually came under the
control of the Roman Empire until the
Empire's decline, after which the area
was invaded by Arab Forces (7th century
AD). Then, from the 16th century until
World War I,...
Brilliant and utterly enthralling in its depiction of childhood, love and war, England and class. At its center this is a profound–and profoundly moving–exploration of shame, forgiveness and the difficulty of absolution.
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(1301 words).
The New York Times - Lorraine Adams
