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Interviews | October 6, 2009

Jill Owens: IMG The Powells.com Interview with Margaret Atwood



margaretatwoodIn her 2003 novel Oryx and Crake, Margaret Atwood describes a future after humanity had been almost entirely wiped out by a plague. Jimmy, aka Snowman, lives... Continue »
  1. $18.86 Sale Hardcover add to wish list

    The Year of the Flood

    Margaret Atwood

In the Country of Men

by Hisham Matar

In the Country of Men Cover

ISBN13: 9780385340434
ISBN10: 0385340435
Condition: Standard
All Product Details

Only 2 left in stock at $8.50!

Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments:

Libya, 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. And then one day Suleiman sees his father across the square of a busy marketplace, his face wrapped in a pair of dark sunglasses. Wasn't he supposed to be away on business yet again? Why is he going into that strange building with the green shutters? Why did he lie?

Suleiman is soon caught up in a world he cannot hope to understand--where the sound of the telephone ringing becomes a portent of grave danger; where his mother frantically burns his father's cherished books; where a stranger full of sinister questions sits outside in a parked car all day; where his best friend's father can disappear overnight, next to be seen publicly interrogated on state television.

In the Country of Men is a stunning depiction of a child confronted with the private fallout of a public nightmare. But above all, it is a debut of rare insight and literary grace.

From the Hardcover edition.

What Our Readers Are Saying

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Average customer rating based on 1 comment:
Shoshana, June 18, 2009 (view all comments by Shoshana)
One of the better novels I've read recently. Matar gives us a narrative from a boy's point of view. Suleiman's story of his family life Libya under Qaddafi is not a war narrative, but partakes of many of that genre's elements, much like Ondjaki's "Good Morning Comrades." Matar's parallels, while not subtle, are also not too crudely rendered. Though this is a political story, its fire derives from the conflicting constellations of loyalty and repugnance within his family. A terrific oedipal tale that also reveals life in totalitarian Libya.
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Product Details

ISBN:
9780385340434
Author:
Matar, Hisham
Publisher:
Dial Press
Subject:
Literary
Subject:
Historical - General
Publication Date:
February 2008
Binding:
Paperback
Language:
English
Pages:
246
Dimensions:
832x556x72 47

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