3:00-4:00 PM
Free

One evening in Benghazi, a young Khaled hears a strange short story broadcast on the radio—about a man devoured alive by a cat—and feels, with quiet certainty, that his life has shifted. Haunted by the story’s unsettling power, and by its elusive author, Hosam Zowa, Khaled carries that moment with him as both wound and compass. It eventually propels him far from home, to the University of Edinburgh, where he pursues a life of the mind.

In Scotland, Khaled is thrust into a world unimaginably distant from the one he left behind. The freedoms he encounters begin to reshape him—until a protest against the Qaddafi regime in London spirals into violence. In an instant, he is gravely injured, stranded in Britain, and cut off from home. Even a phone call to his parents risks exposing them to danger under a surveilled regime.

Then, in a chance meeting at a hotel, Khaled comes face-to-face with Hosam Zowa. What begins as coincidence deepens into the most profound friendship of his life—one that sustains him, challenges him, and ultimately compels him, as the Arab Spring unfolds, to confront impossible choices: between revolution and safety, loyalty and self-preservation, belonging and exile.

A powerful meditation on friendship, family, and the fragile bonds that time both deepens and strains, My Friends is a luminous and deeply affecting novel by a writer at the height of his craft.

Registration is required.

Gunn Memorial Library
5 Wykeham Rd
Washington, CT 06793

5/8/26

https://www.gunnlibrary.org/calendar/gml-friday-book-club-my-friends-by-hisham-matar/