Arab author lists his book among the "Best Books of the Century" in the "New York Times"

The Libyan writer, born in the United States, Hisham Matar, included one of his books in the list of the 100 best books of the twenty-first century, published by the New York Times.

The list, published by the New York Times, of the best books since 2000, included the book “The Return: Fathers and Sons and Middle-earth” by Hisham Matar.

The list was compiled based on a poll of hundreds of literary figures who identified the books, and the New York Times noted that it published its poll with the aim of inspiring others, as it was voted on by 503 novelists, poets, critics and book lovers.

Matar won the Pulitzer Prize in the autobiography category for this novel, which was published in 2016, and in which he talks about his father, whom he lost in a kidnapping in Cairo in 1990.

Matar was 19 when his father was kidnapped and taken to a prison in Libya, and after the fall of former Libyan President Muammar Gaddafi, he tried to make a trip to his country to search for his father.

In 2018, former US President Barack Obama recommended The Return, calling it “a beautifully crafted memoir that skillfully reflects Libya’s modern history, with the author’s relentless search for his father who disappeared in Gaddafi’s prisons.”

Matar was born in 1970 in New York to Libyan parents. He spent his childhood in Tripoli and Cairo, and lived most of his life in London, according to an archived copy of his website. He has several literary works that have been translated into more than 30 languages.