海角大神

In early March, 2012 鈥� five months after the death of dictator Muammar聽Qaddafi 鈥� Libyan writer and Man Booker Prize finalist Hisham Matar boards a plane聽from Cairo to Benghazi. Thirty-seven years after leaving Libya, he is returning to his native country in search of聽answers to his father鈥檚 disappearance.

Jaballa Matar, a businessman and leading exiled dissident of the regime of Muammar聽Qaddafi was kidnapped by Egyptian security agents in March, 1990, and handed over to聽the Libyan regime. At the time, Hisham was 13.

Ever since the kidnapping, Hisham and his family have been gathering every possible scrap of聽information, hoping to someday grasp the truth. The Return: Fathers, Sons and the聽Land in Between is Hisham鈥檚 account of his journey to find answers.

During his time in Libya, while campaigning for his father with the help of international human聽rights centers, Hisham talked with anyone who might have known his father鈥檚 fate.聽

Uncle Mahmoud, his father鈥檚 brother, spent 21 years in Abu Salim prison in Libyan聽capital Tripoli. Mahmoud told Hisham how during his first days in prison he could hear聽another prisoner reciting poetry late into the night. 鈥淭he voice was that of an elderly聽man,鈥� he said. 鈥淥ne day he called out my name. I answered asking him who he was.聽鈥榊ou don鈥檛 recognize me?鈥� he said. I told him, 鈥楴o.鈥� He didn鈥檛 speak after that. Do you聽know how long he fell silent for? A whole week.鈥� Only after a week the prisoner started聽talking again and finally his uncle Mahmoud recognized it was Hisham鈥檚 father, Jaballa.

Years before, Hisham met another man in London who told him that although the聽authorities made sure to keep Jaballa away from other prisoners, he exchanged聽messages with Jaballa. When Hisham asked if the man ever actually saw his father,聽he describes how 鈥渉e used to stand on the shoulders of one of his聽cellmates and watch through the high windows as Father paced the courtyard alone.鈥�

Hisham juxtaposes these accounts with a few messages from his father that were smuggled聽out of the prison, still struggling to learn his father's fate. As the book progresses, Hisham gradually聽accepts that his father is deceased and begins to focus on learning how he died. 聽

Despite the tragic outcome, as he journeys, Hisham does succeed in getting to know his father in聽greater depth. He learns that his father was an editor of a literary journal in college,聽where he wrote short stories. When for the first time he opens the journal, he looks at聽the photo of his father in his late teenage years: 鈥淗e was wearing a suit and tie and a聽confidently serious expression. He looked like a young Albert Camus.鈥澛�

"The Return鈥� is not about one family. It鈥檚 the story of Libyan opposition and resistance, although the Matar family shapes the storyline. The book details Libyan resistance聽against the Italian colonization in early 1900s, of which Hisham鈥檚 paternal grandfather聽took part. It鈥檚 also about the dissidents鈥� campaign against Qaddafi鈥檚 regime that Jaballa聽and his family were part of, as well as the 2011 uprising during which Hisham lost one of聽his nephews in the fight against Qaddafi.

The book describes how, cruelly, even the dimmest ray of hope can keep the families of the disappeared from accepting the possibility of their loss. After Jaballa鈥檚 kidnapping, Hisham鈥檚 mother continues to record every soccer match broadcast for three years, hoping her husband, a passionate soccer fan, will come back and watch them. Another mother whose聽son was imprisoned continues to cook meals and purchase gifts for him, even after 1996 when prison visits were聽abruptly suspended. It鈥檚 only in 2001 that she stops her trips to the prison, when she is聽officially informed that her son was among those executed in June 29, 1996 massacre.

But in the end this book is about survival, the urge to live that has sustained Hisham during his darkest moments. It鈥檚 only in the course of this journey, when Hisham finds his father's short stories, that he discovers that聽Jaballa used the words 鈥渨ork聽and survive" to finish one of his stories. It's a narrative about a boy who聽suffers series of misfortunes. In the end the boy stands up again and decides to carry on 鈥� exactly as Jaballa must have wanted Hisham to do.