The Return cover art

The Return

Fathers, Sons and the Land in Between

 Preview
Try Premium Plus free
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

The Return

By: Hisham Matar
Narrated by: Hisham Matar
Try Premium Plus free

£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £12.99

Buy Now for £12.99

Confirm Purchase
Pay using card ending in
Switch payment method
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.
Cancel

About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

SHORTLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION

SHORTLISTED FOR THE COSTA BIOGRAPHY AWARD

WINNER OF THE SLIGHTLY FOXED BEST FIRST BIOGRAPHY PRIZE

ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES' TOP 10 BOOKS OF 2016

Hisham Matar was nineteen when his father was kidnapped and taken to prison in Libya. He would never see him again. Twenty-two years later, the fall of Gaddafi meant he was finally able to return to his homeland.

In this moving memoir, the author takes us on an illuminating journey, both physical and psychological; a journey to find his father and rediscover his country.

The Return is at once a universal and an intensely personal tale. It is an exquisite meditation on how history and politics can bear down on an individual life. And yet Hisham Matar's memoir isn't just about the burden of the past, but the consolation of love, literature and art. It is the story of what it is to be human.

©2016 Hisham Matar (P)2016 Penguin Audio Art & Literature Authors Inspiring Heartfelt

Listeners also enjoyed...

 The Book of Harlan cover art
The Archaeology of Loss cover art
The Eskimo Slugger cover art
The Kite Runner cover art
Wild Swans cover art
The German Wife cover art
Broken Angels cover art
First They Killed My Father cover art
The Song Before It Is Sung cover art
Prague Winter cover art
Winter Journey cover art
Fathers and Sons cover art
In the Shadow of the Banyan cover art
Taken on Trust cover art
The Trees cover art
All stars
Most relevant  
A well deserved Pulitzer Prize for Hisham Matar, who speaks bravely about the terrible experiences his family faced under the Gaddafi regime and not knowing the fate of his diplomat father. It is gripping and terrifying to hear how easy it was for the authorities to arrest and kill Libyans at will even on foreign soil and the complicity of western countries that allowed it to happen. Truly a harrowing and stirring listen.

Deeply moving, the horrors of separation

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Listening to the audiobook narrated by the author himself made the whole experience all the more intimate and gripping.

This is the story of one man’s search for his father, who was disappeared and imprisoned during Qaddafi’s brutal rule, in Libya. It’s a book about men, where the women feature in the background but do the heavy emotional weightlifting. The disappeared were the children of these women, their fathers, brothers, and husbands, yet their grief translates through that of their children and other menfolk.

There’s a tinge of sadness in Matar’s voice. Throughout the book, one can’t help but experience the pain and yearning as he flashbacks in his narration to various episodes of togetherness, absence, separation, and hope.

The book is an epic of endurance, resistance and the undying hope that the relatives of disappeared political prisoners in Libya and the Arab world continue to hold for a better future.

Painfully poignant and haunting.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Interesting but somewhat drawn out, written by professional writer and somewhat literary in style. Actual story was interesting though just took a while to get through.

Good but drawn out

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
A great book well narrated but is spoiled by poor editing - the final word of each chapter is cut short by the start of the mew chapter. I am suspicious that some paragraphs of recording were also cut out. Not the quality i am used to or expect.

Let down by poor recording

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I love the pace of Hisham Matar’s delivery. This is a challenging and painful personal story but full of riches from an incredible writer. I was so moved, but really learned something. Matar is an incredible empath - a privilege to witness his journey in this book.

Deeply personal and devastating

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
The material, so sensitive and personal almost stopped me listening. It’s beautifully written and narrated exceptionally as only a writer himself is able; telling the tragic cruel history of Libya; his diaspora and return and the rediscovery of his absent imprisoned father and family.
I’m not going to dare offer further bumbling comment but the sound editors didn’t leave enough of a natural pause between chapters, and the book deserves this.

Exceptional....

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
The fact that the author is reading his story to us makes it all the more poignant.
This beautifully written book explains the pain of losing his father but never having closure, the horrors and violence of Gaddafi’s regime, the huge number of deaths in the country over a long reign of terror and it is about his difficult return to his homeland after many years elsewhere. It is a sad account and so movingly read by the author. Yet it is not entirely miserable - I was left with a sense of just how resilient humans can be.
The poor editing of chapter starts/ends was very irritating. The author’s performance was excellent, Audible’s less so.

Beautifully written and read

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I expected great things. I enjoyed finding out about Libya and the personal history. In the end the search for the author's father became repetitious and a bit dull. The narrator's tone exacerbated my impatience. Maybe I just lack empathy.

Compassion fatigue

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
It's impossible to find the words to praise this book, and its presentation by the author himself. The subject is tragic, the reading measured and sombre and the story is completely gripping. it should be read by anyone who cares about the fate of those trapped in vicious and violent regimes but who try always to speak truth to power.

superb

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I could listen to Hisham Matar's gently accented voice all day and all night. He is a true wordsmith. This is a stunning story with pearls of wisdom and beauty hidden in the deep sadness of loss and despair.

(Is there a production error? Is chapter 14 repeated, or did I do something strange when I downloaded it?)

I am in love with this author/narrator's voice!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
See more reviews