In the Country of Men is a literary novel set in Tripoli in 1979, told through the eyes of nine-year-old Suleiman as his family’s private life begins to crack under the pressure of Muammar Gaddafi’s Libya. Hisham Matar builds the story around a child who senses that the adult world around him is full of secrets: his father disappears on “business,” his mother struggles with fear and loneliness, and the political violence outside the home slowly enters the rooms where Suleiman once felt protected. The novel combines coming-of-age fiction, political fiction, family drama, and Libyan history, showing how dictatorship reshapes even the most intimate bonds between parents, children, neighbors, and friends. Through Suleiman’s limited but piercing perspective, the book asks what a child can understand when silence, loyalty, and betrayal become part of everyday life.
Author: Hisham Matar
Publisher: Penguin Books
Year published: 2007
Number of pages: 256
Original language: English