Hisham Matar quotes:

Grief loves the hollow; all it wants is to hear its own echo.

Season of Migration to the North, by Tayeb Salih, is an eloquent and restrained portrait of one man's exile. It is a rare narrative in that it charts a life divided between England and Sudan. Without a doubt it is one of the finest Arabic novels of the 20th century, and Denys Johnson-Davies' translationdoes the original justice.

I am of the firm opinion that no one should tell writers what to do, or what to write, or how to write.

How readily and thinly we procure these fictional selves, deceiving the world and what we might have become if only we hadn't got in the way, if only we had waited to see what might have become of us.

One's nature is like a mountain

Books written out of fire give me a great deal of pleasure. You get the sense that the world for these writers could not have continued if the book hadn't been written. When you come across a book like that it is a privilege.

I wanted to wear her as you would a piece of clothing, to fold into her ribs, be a stone in her mouth.

It is sometimes hard to escape the belief that history exists against the artist.

Nothing is more acceptable than what we are born into.

The three things that help writing the most are living, writing, and reading. In that order.

There and then, sitting beside her and within the strength of my adoration, I felt invincible.

When I first began writing In the Country of Men all I had was the voice of the protagonist. He intrigued me and my desire to want to know him and his world became almost compulsive.