In the Country of Men

Starred review from October 30, 2006
Shortlisted for the 2006 Man Booker Prize, Matar's debut novel tracks the effects of Libyan strongman Khadafy's 1969 September revolution on the el-Dawani family, as seen by nine-year-old Suleiman, who narrates as an adult. Living in Tripoli 10 years after the revolution with his parents and spending lazy summer days with his best friend, Kareem, Suleiman has his world turned upside down when the secret police–like Revolutionary Committee puts the family in its sights—though Suleiman does not know it, his father has spoken against the regime and is a clandestine agitator—along with families in the neighborhood. When Kareem's father is arrested as a traitor, Suleiman's own father appears to be next. The ensuing brutality resonates beyond the bloody events themselves to a brutalizing of heart and mind for all concerned. Matar renders it brilliantly, as well as zeroing in on the regime's reign of terror itself: mock trials, televised executions, neighbors informing on friends, persecution mania in those remaining. By the end, Suleiman's father must either renounce the cause or die for it, and Suleiman faces the aftermath of conflicts (including one with Kareem) that have left no one untouched. Suleiman's bewilderment speaks volumes. Matar wrests beauty from searing dread and loss.

Short-listed for the 2006 Booker Prize, Hisham Matar's beautifully crafted retrospective recounts Muammar el-Qaddafi's brutal Libyan regime through a child's eyes. Stephen Hoye's narration is slow and sonorous as Suleiman relates his confusion at age 9 when the adults around him suddenly grow panicky, speaking in whispers. When his best friend's father is arrested, Hoye brings poignancy to the boy's worry that his own father will be next. He relates with matter-of-factness Suleiman's confession that when his father is away, his mother gets "sick" on the "medicine" she buys in secret, and rambles to him of her disappointments. With so much horror to digest, Hoye wisely doesn't try to infuse childish ingenuousness into Suleiman's observations. An exceptional debut novel is given an intelligent, respectful reading. S.J.H. (c) AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine