The Return: Fathers, Sons and the Land in Between

Very good books. Easy arrival. Thanks

very good book

In a war-torned country, a son hopes against all hopes to find his father who is captured and kept in a secret location. As Hisham fights his demons, he makes us look at how unpredictable and unfair the life can be amidst conflict. A very decent book, with facts weaved in seamlessly, it still very bizarrely and conveniently ignores the role of women in a revolution. At the end, you walk away with a feeling that there could have been so much more to the story, especially more on how humanity suffers at the hands of power hungry people. I would rather recommend Istanbul Istanbul as it brings alive the human sacrifice in the face of greater good rather craftily.

Book was awesome, very aweful delivery

A well written book about the deepest love and loss a person can bear. Worth a read for sure

That it is a true story - makes it that much alluring and chilling. An amazing gift of weaving in and out of events. Remarkable resilience both By the father and the son.

Among the most beautifully written and elegiac of memoirs that I have ever read. A tale of memories and places connected with family - grand-fathers and fathers - uncles and cousins - in exile and incarcerated in the prisons of invaders and of dictators. Torture mixed with searching - smuggled letters and whispers of sightings - oh weep for Libya and the interference of selfish vested interests! Hisham MATAR tells the story of too many of us - of suffering in our own lands -and of dispersal to the world. I write this brief review in Australia where a banal-looking self-described "democratic" government locks up asylum-seekers fleeing despots - then tortures them in off-shore island gulags - unto death - while bleating about keeping the citizens safe with strong border controls. Hideous! Beyond hideous. Our Quaddafi goes under various names - including those of Tony Abbott, Scott Morrison, Malcolm Turnbull, Peter Dutton - among others. This books shines a spotlight on dictatorships in general. Thank you Hisham MATAR!

Privileged access into the psyche of the son of a Libyan political dissident, who strives to come to terms with the fact that his father - who was arrested without warning during the author's childhood - was probably killed in a State authorised massacre whilst a political prisoner in Libya's most infamous prison. At times this was a desperately sad read. It reminded me, in parts, of the narratives of Auschwitz survivors and religiously affiliated prisoners of the former Eastern Bloc Communist regimes. Overall this was a book that made me commit - emotionally, practically and financially - to the promotion of universal human rights; and not many books in my experience have made such an impression.

I think I enjoyed this book but I don't remember to develop more, sorry!

Adorei o livro. Conciso, preciso, rico, tocante, realista. Expõe os sentimentos humanos, o que é importante, em construções imagéticas que tocam profundamente nossa alma..

Reading Matar is like discovering another world. It’s the best book I’ve read in a long time.