Hisham Matar

Hisham Matar is the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of the memoir The Return, which also received the PEN/Jean Stein Award, the Prix du Livre Étranger Inter—Le Journal du Dimanche (France), Geschwister-Scholl-Preis (Germany), the Rathbones Folio Prize, and the Slightly Foxed Best First Biography Prize, and was selected as one of The New York Times’ top 10 books of the year. His debut novel, In the Country of Men, was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and The Guardian First Book Award, and won numerous international prizes, including the Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize and a Commonwealth First Book Award. His second novel, Anatomy of a Disappearance, was published to great acclaim in 2011 and was named one of the best books of the year by several publications, including the Chicago Tribune, The Daily Beast, The Independent, and The Guardian. Matar’s work has been translated into thirty languages and he is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Born in New York City to Libyan parents, he spent his childhood in Tripoli and Cairo and has lived most of his adult life in London. He now divides his time between London and New York.