My Friends
by Hisham Matar
Award History
| Award | Year | Status |
|---|---|---|
| RSL Ondaatje Prize | 2025 | Shortlist |
| National Book Award for FictionFiction | 2024 | Shortlist |
| National Book Critics Circle Award (Fiction)Fiction | 2024 | Winner |
| Orwell Prize for Political Fiction | 2024 | Winner |
| RSL Ondaatje Prize | 2024 | Shortlist |
| Orwell Prize for Political Fiction | 2023 | Shortlist |
| Orwell Prize for Political Fiction | 2022 | Shortlist |
About This Book
Hisham Matar's third novel follows Khaled, a Libyan exile in London, and his two closest friends — also Libyan — over the decades since their arrival in Britain. The novel centres on a 1984 demonstration outside the Libyan embassy in St James's Square at which a British policewoman was shot, an event that casts a long shadow over the three friends' lives. It won the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction in 2024.
About the Author
Hisham Matar is a Libyan-American novelist and memoirist whose work excavates the intersections of political violence, exile, memory, and family. Born in New York City to Libyan parents, he spent his childhood in Tripoli and Cairo before moving to England, where he was educated at the London School of Economics. His debut novel In the Country of Men (2006) was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award, and won several international prizes. Read more →
