American - Writer | 1970 -
In Libya, I did well at school because I was clever. In Egyptian public school, I got the highest marks for the basest of reasons. And in the American school, I struggled. Everything - mathematics, the sciences, pottery, swimming - had to be conducted in a language I hardly knew and that was neither spoken in the streets nor at home.
Hisham Matar
HomeMathematicsSchoolSwimming
Switching languages is a form of conversion. And like all conversions, whether it's judged a failure or a success, it excites the desire to leave, go elsewhere, adopt a new language and start all over again. It also means that a conscious effort is demanded to remain still.
SuccessFailureEffortStartDesire
Grenfell, the building set on fire with the help of its own face, is a scene of a complex injustice: one that is moral, economic, political, and aesthetic. Not only was the cladding unsafe, it was ugly; not only was it ugly, it was untrue both to the architecture of the building it covered and untrue to its responsibility to human safety.
ResponsibilityFireArchitectureUgly
One of the frustrations of prison life, which is also one of its intended consequences, is that the prisoner is made ineffective. He is unable to be of much use. The aim is to render him powerless.
LifePrisonConsequencesAimHimHe
When I was 12 years old, living in Cairo, my parents enrolled me in the American school. Most of the Americans there appeared oddly stifled, determined to remain, if not physically then sentimentally, back in the United States.
SchoolParentsMeAmericanBackOld
Whenever I was encouraged by my elders to pick up a book, I was often told, 'Read so as to know the world.' And it is true; books have invited me into different countries, states of mind, social conditions and historical epochs; they have offered me a place at the most unusual gatherings.
MindMeWorldBookPlaceKnow
Books have shown me horror and beauty.
BeautyMeHorrorBooksShown
Nothing we read can import new or foreign feelings that we don't, in one form or another, already possess.
FeelingsNewNothingReadForm
I get a lot of energy from making things up, which is why I feel I'm a novelist.
EnergyFeelWhyUpThingsGet
I am terribly interested in the paragraph: the paragraph as an object, the construction, and the possibilities of what a paragraph can do.
I AmConstructionPossibilitiesAm
The space where writing happens is a unique space that's hard to define, and when you're kicked out of it because you're travelling or distracted, it seems so elusive and hard to defend because you yourself doubt whether it existed.
YourselfSpaceWritingYouUnique
I've never thought of myself in terms of an identity. I'm always baffled when I encounter someone who gives the impression about being confident about a particular defined identity.
MyselfIdentityThoughtConfident
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