My Friends

"Shortlist"

"“Our friendships are our fate,” novelist Hisham Matar told me this year. The entirety of his book My Friends unfolds during a late-night walk across London. As the story begins, the protagonist, a middle-aged Libyan man named Khaled, has just bid farewell to his old friend Hosam Zowa at St. Pancras station. On Khaled’s long walk home from Hosam’s departure, he tells the story of their relationship – everything from how they met as young men, to the loves and books they shared, and, most importantly, the changing and inevitable seasons of friendships."