The Return: Fathers, Sons and the Land in Between Hardcover – International Edition, 5 Jul 2016

this book is a beautifully written account of loss, bereavement and the relationship between father and son. It also shines a light on what it is to be Libyan and live in the western world with all the attachments to the people and places of your youth force ably taken from you.it is quite a short book but at the end you feel you know the author well and have had your eyes opened to the effect that pointless egotistical brutality has on ordinary people, It is also a long love letter to Matar's father.

Hisham Matar's work will appeal to the reflective reader who is interested in the emotional effects of the alienation which arises in many families of refugees who have been displaced countless times . There is a rootlessness which results from constant physical and mental relocation where emotions may be put on hold .This slight volume does not labour the study of the displaced's psyche but rather retails a series of rearrivals and refamiliarisations as he returns to Libya and sees old locations with his adult eye. In a way it is true for all trying to equate current concepts of the imaginary past events and placeswith a new view.Matar's use of language makes it a intellectually satisfying read.

I found this quite disappointing, having loved Matar's novel based on his Libyan childhood. This is a story from the perspective of a man whose father vanished (kidnapped and jailed in Libya) when he was an adolescent. He never got to know his father in an adult relationship, so the hero worship of a man who struck me as deeply irresponsible and the detailed accounts of the pursuit of will o' the wisp clues as to his whereabouts over the years, particularly after the fall of Ghadaffi was presumably cathartic for Matar to write about, but actually not that interesting to the reader. The whole thing could have been nicely wrapped up in 100 pages.

Very stimulating and thought provoking read. How quickly one forgets the passing of dictators and their brutality...but for those who directly (and more indirectly)experienced their arbitrary cruelty and terror the effects are permanent.Here the author relates movingly his and especially his fathers and families experiences in a direct ,spare and effective reflection on the nature of those effects. I read this straight through in one day and found in both engrossing and thought provoking.

I was immersed in Matar's world, you can feel his sense of alienation. There are very powerful passages about the sense of loss of the father and the gap it leaves on Matar's life. There are beautiful details about family life from a lavish dinner party his mothers prepared, to time spent with his almost ascetic grandfather. The personal and historic merge seamlessly.

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.

A moving exploration of a father and son relationship, love and loss, uncertainty and searching set in the context of Libya over the past few decades. It is a deeply personal and insightful account. It personalises a conflict that despite being much in the news recently had remained until now somewhat remote.I loved it.

This is beautifully written, although I found the flitting back and forth in time rather confusing, but it's a must tell story of the agonising search for a lost father, written without sentimentality but poignant nonetheless.