Hisham Matar was born in New York City in 1970 to Libyan parents. He grew up in Tripoli, Libya, and Cairo, Egypt. His novels include In the Country of Men and Anatomy of a Disappearance. His memoir, The Return: Fathers, Sons and the Land In Between, won the Pulitzer Prize for biography/autobiography in 2017. He also won the 2017 PEN America Literary Awards/Jean Stein Award for The Return: Fathers, Sons and the Land In Between.