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The Return (Omnibus)

The Return by Hisham Matar (Omnibus)

Factual: Life Stories

Hisham Matar - The Return: Omnibus

BBC Radio 4 Extra - The Return by Hisham Matar (Omnibus)

Hisham Matar's memoir of hope and loss, a powerful insight into Libya under Gaddafi.

Hisham Matar's memoir of hope and loss - a powerful insight into life in Libya under Gaddafi. Read by Khalid Abdalla.

Libyan novelist Hisham Matar’s powerful memoir describes the state of hope and grief he endured in the two decades since his father, Jaballa, was kidnapped by Qaddafi's regime in 1990. 

Imprisoned and kept isolated from other prisoners, Jaballa managed to send only a handful of letters to his family before he disappeared without trace. To this day, no-one is sure what happened to him, although it is likely that he died in a massacre at Abu Salim prison in Tripoli in 1996.

Living in exile since the 1970s, Hisham returned to Libya for the first time in 2012, following the revolution that brought down Qaddafi and his regime. 

In beautiful language, he describes the difficult state of exile, its mix of guilt and pain, as well as the powerful meetings with his uncles and cousins, many of whom had also been imprisoned, and for whose release he campaigned tirelessly.

“You make a man disappear to silence him but also to narrow the minds of those left behind, to pervert their soul and limit their imagination. When Qaddafi took my father, he placed me in a space not much bigger than the cell Father was in. I paced back and forth, anger in one direction, hatred in the other, until I could feel my insides grow small and hard. And, because I was young, and hatred and anger are a young man’s emotions, I tricked myself into thinking the transformation was good, that it was akin to progress, a sign of vigour and strength.”

Omnibus of five episodes abridged by Anna Magnusson.

Read by Khalid Abdalla

Khalid is an actor and political activist born in Britain after his parents were forced to leave Egypt in the late 1970s – his father was a leading student activist there and was imprisoned several times.

Producer: Kirsteen Cameron.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in October 2016.

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