Hisham Matar
Hisham Matar was born in New York in November 1970 and spent his childhood in Tripoli and Cairo before moving back to Britain. He studied architecture at Goldsmith’s College and in 1990, when he was a student, his father - a Libyan dissident living in Cairo - was kidnapped, taken back to Tripoli, imprisoned and tortured and there has been no word since 1995. In the Country of Men was his first novel, and shortlisted for The Man Booker Prize in 2006. Matar has lived in London since 1986.
