On June 27, 2024, Hisham Matar, professor of professional practice in English and Asian and Middle Eastern cultures, was announced as the 2024 Orwell Prize for Political Fiction winner for his new novel, My Friends.
My Friends tells the story of Khaled and Mustafa, two Libyan teenagers who befriend one another as university students in Edinburgh, Scotland. After the two young men were critically injured in the 1984 shooting of protestors at the Libyan embassy in London, their lives were forever changed. Years later, when the 2011 revolution breaks out in Libya, Khaled, Mustafa, and their friend Hosam each must make an impossible decision: choose between the lives they have made for themselves in London or the lives they have left behind.
The Orwell Prizes aim to encourage critical thinking about politics by recognizing exceptional achievements in political writing. Matar is the fifth annual recipient of the Prize for Political Fiction, the Orwell Foundation's newest award category. Alexandra Harris, who chaired the political fiction panel this year, praises My Friends as “a work of grace, gentleness, beauty, and intellect, offered in the face of blunt violence and tyranny.”