In Libya in 1979, nine-year-old Suleiman’s days are circumscribed by the narrow rituals of childhood: outings to the ruins surrounding Tripoli, games with friends played under the burning sun, exotic gifts from his father’s constant business trips abroad. But his nights have come to revolve around his mother’s increasingly disturbing bedside stories full of old family bitterness. When his father is suddenly arrested by the Revolutionary Guard, Suleiman is caught up in a world he cannot begin to understand. Matar’s gripping novel was short-listed for the Man Booker Prize.
