On January 9, 2024, Hisham Matar, professor of professional practice in English, Comparative Literature, and Asian and Middle Eastern Cultures, published his new book, My Friends. The novel centers on Khaled and Mustafa, two Libyan teenagers who befriend one another as university students in Edinburgh. After the two young men are critically injured at a demonstration in front of the Libyan embassy in London, their lives change. My Friends chronicles the years that follow for Khaled, Mustafa, and their friend Hosam, a writer. When revolution breaks out in Libya, they find they each must make an impossible decision: choose between the lives they have made for themselves in London or the lives they have left behind.
Professor Matar was awarded the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for his memoir The Return. In 2006, his novel In the Country of Men was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize.