Pulitzer Prize winning author Hisham Matar’s debut novel, In the Country of Men, was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and The Guardian First Book Award and won numerous international prizes. His prize-winning memoir, The Return, published in 2016, received the 2017 Pulitzer Prize. It was one of The New York Times' top 10 books of the year. He’s also the author of Anatomy of a Disappearance and A Month in Siena, which was named One of the Best Books of the Year in 2019 by The Washington Post and Evening Standard.

My Friends is his latest. The New York Times recently said of it, “Readers encountering Matar for the first time will find in My Friends a masterly literary meditation on his lifelong themes. For those who already know his work, the effect is amplified tenfold. In the dark house Matar continues to explore, the rooms are full of echoes: The further in you go, the louder they get.”

Matar joins Marrie Stone to talk about these lifelong preoccupations, and the sources from which they stem. He discusses his literary influences, why he believes literature is critical in times of despair, and what he hopes to achieve in his fiction. They also discuss structure, points of view, how time can work in fiction, and other issues of craft.

For more information on Writers on Writing and extra writing perks, visit our Patreon page. To listen to past interviews, visit our website. We’re also excited to announce the opening of our new bookstore on bookshop.org. We’ve stocked it with titles from our guests, as well as some of our own personal favorites. By purchasing through the store, you’ll support both independent bookstores and our show. New titles will be added all the time (it’s a work in progress). Finally, on Spotify you can listen to an album’s worth of typewriter music like what you hear on the show. Look for the artist, Just My Type. Email the show at [email protected]. We love to hear from our listeners.

(Recorded on January 8, 2024) 

Host: Barbara DeMarco-Barrett
Host: Marrie Stone
Music and sound editing: Travis Barrett (Stream his music on Spotify, Apple Music, Etc.)