The year 2024 was a great one for Barnard storytellers. Consider the critically acclaimed books from two of the College’s celebrated scribes: My Friends by professor Hisham Matar, and We’re Alone by alumna Edwidge Danticat ’90. In recognition of their literary excellence, the National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) announced on January 23 that both are finalists for awards, in the fiction and nonfiction categories, respectively.
When Matar — professor of professional practice in English, comparative literature, and Asian and Middle Eastern cultures — published My Friends last February, fiction lovers rejoiced. Set in London with a spotlight on Libya, the novel chronicles the friendship and life-changing events of Khaled and Mustafa, who met as university students in Edinburgh, and of their author friend Hosam. After the Arab Spring erupts in Libya, they are all forced to decide between maintaining the lives they have in London or returning to the lives they left behind in Libya.
Described as “riveting and humane” by The Atlantic and “a masterly literary meditation” by The New York Times, Matar’s novel had received international praise and several award nominations by the summer, including winning the 2024 Orwell Prize for Political Fiction and being nominated for his second Booker Prize (In the Country of Men was recognized in 2006).
The applause for the book was swift, but bringing it to fruition was not. In an interview with Barnes & Noble last year, Matar said the book “emerged very, very slowly. I thought the first time that I had thought of the idea was in 2011 with the Arab Spring.” Years later, however, as he was sifting through papers for an upcoming event, he found an envelope.
“[It] was from when we lived in Paris in 2003, and on the back of the envelope there’s an idea for a book,” Matar continued. “It’s just a couple of lines, and it’s basically this book about male friendship.”
Watch the full interview below:
With this month’s nod for the NBCC award, fans of the Pulitzer Prize-winning author will be excited to see the novel foster conversations around the importance of friendship and the heartbreak of exile, as well as to hear more about art in general from him. On the same day My Friends was announced as shortlisted, the Metropolitan Museum of Art hosted “An Evening in Siena with Writer Hisham Matar,” in which he sat in conversation with Met curator Stephan Wolohojian to discuss the significance of Siena’s painters.
From the moment it hit bookshelves last September, Danticat’s collection of essays, We’re Alone, has riveted readers. Formatted with personal narratives and reports that explore themes around the environment, colonialism, motherhood, and resilience, the book by the two-time NBCC Award winner takes readers on a journey from her childhood through the traumas of the COVID-19 pandemic and Haiti’s recent political events, while also paying homage to her literary icons — James Baldwin, Paule Marshall, Gabriel García Márquez, and Toni Morrison, to name a few.
We’re Alone was named a “best book of 2024” by NPR.org, Publishers Weekly, and Electric Literature, and its prose was said to “imagine a form of authorship that is both distinctive and communal” by The Washington Post. Danticat spoke directly to WaPo’s analysis in an interview with NPR: “We all feel alone sometimes in the sense that no one is coming to save us. But in this context, I think of it as this relationship between a reader and a writer in the sense that, when I was 4 years old, I was surrounded by very vibrant storytellers, and I loved it.”
Listen to the complete interview below:
In the spirit of that distinctive and communal voice, Danticat, the Wun Tsun Tam Mellon Professor of the Humanities at Columbia, will return to Barnard on February 20 as the 2025 Lewis-Ezekoye Distinguished Lecture in Africana Studies keynote speaker, in honor of her fellow alumna and author Zora Neale Hurston ’28. The event, “‘All Geography Is Within Me’: Following in Zora Neale Hurston’s Travel-Dusted Tracks,” will officially launch the College’s Zora Neale Hurston Centennial celebration at Barnard.
For the upcoming Winter issue of Barnard Magazine, in which Danticat is profiled, she spoke about her Hurston love and the resilience of Barnard women as a collective. “They have always been, in my mind, part of extraordinary struggle, extraordinary change. They’ve always had a voice in spaces of power,” she said. “This year, we’re honoring Zora Neale Hurston, [and] she certainly spoke truth to power. We didn’t always agree with what she was saying, but she spoke clearly. I think that’s what Barnard women have always done, and that’s what I hope they will continue to do."
The winners of the National Book Critics Circle Awards will be announced on March 20.
