Hisham Matar - In the Country of Men

review by Corinna Christopher live on show May 2012

I read a review of this book and thought it sounded interesting since it was set in Libya and would give a picture of life there in 1979 when the story starts.

Suleiman lives in Tripoli and is telling the story from the perspective of a 9 year old boy. He lives with his parents in a busy part of the city surrounded by friends and neighbours. His relationship with his mother, Mama, is complex and close since she is often ill and in need of attention often due to the consumption of some “medicine” mysteriously bought from the local baker and consumed in private. Married at 14 to a man she had never met and reluctant to have any children. Baba , his father, is often away from home, a political agitator and pro-democracy activist. His life is therefore secretive and dangerous.

There is a body known as the Revolutionary Committee who keep a close watch on everyone and when their neighbour and teacher Rashid is taken away one day there is consternation. They come looking for Baba but cannot find him. After they are gone Mama and Suleiman together with their great friend Moosa burn all of Baba,s books. A watch is kept on their house by a sinister man in a white car who tries to befriend Suleiman and get him to disclose important facts.

Rashid appears on tv and is condemned as a traitor and then publicly hanged in full view of all the audiences. Suleiman is deeply affected by this spectacle. Meanwhile his father is removed by the secret police and the family have to make embaressing overtures to the authorities to have him released.

What happens next makes up the rest of the story. It is all about a child’s perceptions of life in a terror state. It is a powerful and touching account of a land haunted by limited civil liberties.

The author has a good way with words in order to entice the reader into his mind set. I especially liked the following descriptions “ Palm trees bowed like gossiping women at the edge of the City” and men at prayer
“a carpet of hunched white backs like seagulls, grooming their chests”
In the end Suleiman has an education, a career and a life elsewhere. But nowhere replaced Libya and he always felt a great emptiness.

The book is easy to read, with a flowing style and I really liked it.