اختفاء

by Hisham Matar, ﻫﺷﺎﻡ ﻤﻃﺭ, Muhammed Abdelnabi (Translator)

كان نوري صغيرا عندما توفيت والدته ، ولم يتخيل قط أن يستطيع أحد ملء الفراغ الذي خلفته ..حتى ظهرت منى . رآها نوري أولا ، قبل أن تقابل والده و قبل أن توافق عاى الزواج منه
استبدت بنوري الغيرة من سعادة والده و حياته الجديدة مع منى حتى تمنى اختفاءه ، ّذلك قبل اختفاء والده المفاجئ و الغامض في شتاء عام 1972 . و مع سعي نوري و منى للبحث عن والده يكتشفا تفاصيل كانا يجهلانها عن حياة أقرب الناس لهما . من خلال قصة أسرة عربية تعيش في مصر هربا من طاغية ما ، و بلغة سلسة و جذابة تستدرجك لأعماق الرواية و شخصياتها ، يتساءل هشام مطر عن كيف نواصل الحياة رغم اختفاء أحبابنا عنها

Genres: Fiction, Africa, Egypt, Mystery, Middle East, Novels, Libya

250 pages, Paperback

First published August 23, 2011

About the author

Hisham Matar was born in New York City, where his father was working for the Libyan delegation to the United Nations. When he was three years old, his family went back to Tripoli, Libya, where he spent his early childhood. Due to political persecutions by the Ghaddafi regime, in 1979 his father was accused of being a reactionary to the Libyan revolutionary regime and was forced to flee the country with his family. They lived in exile in Egypt where Hisham and his brother completed their schooling in Cairo. In 1986 he moved to London, United Kingdom, where he continued his studies and received a degree in architecture. In 1990, while he was still in London, his father, a political dissident, was kidnapped in Cairo. He has been reported missing ever since. However, in 1996, the family received two letters with his father's handwriting stating that he was kidnapped by the Egyptian secret police, handed over to the Libyan regime, and imprisoned in the notorious Abu-Salim prison in the heart of Tripoli. Since that date, there has been no more information about his father's whereabouts.

Hisham Matar began writing poetry and experimented in theatre. He began writing his first novel In the Country of Men in early 2000. In the autumn of 2005, the publishers Penguin International signed a two-book deal with him, and the novel was a huge success.

Reviews

[Orsodimondo · Rating 3 out of 5]

NESSUNO AL MONDO



Nuri, l’io narrante di questo romanzo, racconta la sua vita tra gli otto e i 25 anni.
Ma se adesso dovessi descriverlo, dire perché si comporta come si comporta, cosa sente (a parte la lapalissiana mancanza del padre), non ci riuscirei, andrei un po’ di qua e un po’ di là, farei confusione e non saprei centrare il fulcro.

Non avrei più successo con Mona, oppure provando a descrivere il grande assente, il padre.
Men che meno con la madre morta.
Forse, mi andrebbe meglio con Naima, ma solo perché è un personaggio monodimensionale.



Nuri è spesso sbilanciato: a soli 14 anni è già troppo grande nella sua ossessione erotica per Mona, che suo padre sposerà presto in seconde nozze; e da adulto è invece spesso immaturo, fragile e senza determinazione.

Naima ha la stessa età di Mona, anzi, forse addirittura un anno in meno: certo la prima è serva e la seconda padrona, per cui l’età è portata in ben diverso modo – ma è strano che Matar non si soffermi almeno una volta a rifletterci.

Il padre è quasi uno stereotipo cinematografico, un po’ come Mona: sembrano personaggi presi dal cinema degli anni Cinquanta.
Che fa Kamal Pasha, qual è la sua attività? Cosa gli è davvero successo?
Com’è morta la madre di Nuri?
E come ha fatto Nuri a trasformare la vita in collegio dal tormento dei primi tempi al diletto degli ultimi?



Sono tante le cose che restano non dette, segrete. Troppi misteri. Reticenza?

La mia impressione è che l’aspetto fortemente autobiografico abbia giocato un tiro a Hisham Matar: per cercare ‘la giusta distanza’ è andato troppo lontano, risultando freddo, perdendo emozione.
Ha messo in piedi un’ottima atmosfera, evocativa: fatta di nebbie e foschia, anche nel sole sfavillante dell’Egitto - anche quando appare per la prima volta Mona nel suo costume giallo, vince l’indecisione e l’evanescenza.
Certo, è un libro che affronta una scomparsa: l’affronta addirittura attraverso un’anatomia.
E allora, il freddo viene forse dal tavolo dedicato alle anatomie?

Oppure è che la realtà supera la finzione e ha ben maggiore impatto?
Il padre di Hisham Matar fu effettivamente rapito dai servizi segreti egiziani e consegnato a Gheddafi, del quale era oppositore, e fu chiuso in prigione, per quanto tempo?…si sono perse le tracce…venti e passa anni…è ancora vivo?…che cosa gli è successo?



Si può dire che HM possiede il dono per trasmettere assenza e desiderio, sa costruire con prosa asciutta un ambiente fatto di sogno: sembra quasi che voglia porsi come ponte tra la cultura araba, di origine, e quella anglossassone, che lo ha accolto (Matar scrive in inglese).

In un romanzo costellato di epifanie, rivelazioni, agnizioni, la cosa che mi è davvero chiara è che la scomparsa non riguarda solo il padre, ma anche il figlio: la vita del giovane si è persa insieme a quella dell’adulto.


L’immagine di copertina sul libro di Hisham Matar del 2016, pubblicato in Italia da Einaudi quest’anno, “Il ritorno, padri, figli e la terra fra di loro”, è una fotografia di sua moglie Diane.

[Diane S ☔ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nuri is eight when his mother dies. A few years later at a resort where he is staying with his father, he meets Mona, a woman eleven years his elder, who he develops a fascination with that last years. His father, an ex finance minister, whose life is in danger after Gaddafi takes control of his country, had already moved his family to Cairo. He will marry Mona to give the young Nuri a mother. He will eventually be disappeared, whereabouts unknown and Nuri will spend his life wondering what has happened to his father.

After recently reading this author non fiction book The Return: Fathers, Sons, and the Land in Between, I realize this his second novel is partly autobiographical. In The Return, a now grown man tries to find the father who was disappeared, traveling to Libya and reconnecting with the family he has left there. In this novel, a young man will attempt to make sense of his Father's disappearance as well as trying to live a life with unanswered questions. He will learn much about his father but not exactly what happened to him nor where he is being kept or even if he is still alive. This is of course a poignant search since it is partly based on reality.

I have come to love this author's sparse writing style. Clear cut, straightforward, no words wasted yet still manages to convey much. A young boy growing up, going through all the things a young boy will go through while having this big hole in his life.

[Carol · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was fascinated with this spare yet elegantly written coming of age novel because so much of the story parallels the author, Hisham Matar’s own life. In this semi-autobiographical story, Nuri, a young boy of 14 years, loses his father (a diplomat and dissident living in political exile in Egypt) when he is suddenly abducted and “disappeared” by some unnamed foreign government. The novel recounts the next 10 years of Nuri’s life as he uncovers pieces of his father’s mysterious past and attempts to come to terms with the knowledge that he may be gone for good.

Hisham Matar based this novel on much of his own personal experiences. His father was kidnapped from the family home in Cairo and then handed over and imprisoned by the Libyan Gadhafi regime. Except for one letter smuggled out in 1995, he was never heard from again.

In this story, details of the political plot and Nuri’s father’s whereabouts were purposely obscure as I feel they should be in order to mirror this author’s personal angst and lack of closure when his own father was kidnapped and permanently “disappeared” from his young life.

I love this kind of writing…spare with no fillers. I was absolutely captivated by this lyrical and sometimes surreal gem of a story.

[بثينة العيسى · Rating 5 out of 5]

شكل من أشكال الكمال.

[kwesi 章英狮 · Rating 4 out of 5]

My father is a quite type, you will always see him sitting in a sofa watching television or sitting in the near bench. He never cared of his surroundings or maybe I'm too heartless to share his feelings. I live with that kind of situation and never regret that I have a father like him. I lived closely with my mom and siblings and if you ask me, I used to having my mom at my side than sitting with my quite father.

Anatomy of Disappearance is written by Hisham Matar, a Libyan author and shortlisted for the 2006 Man Booker Price Award with his first novel In the Country of Men. I'm so excited to read this book because this is my first time to encounter a Libyan author living in London to write and exploring new authors is my hobby. Attention, I did not read his first book although I read that this book had similarities with the first one, and I'm interested to read it soon.

The Anatomy of Disappearance is a story of a young boy looking for his lost father for 10 years. He doesn't have any idea where he goes or what really happened to him. He died or maybe escaped from his real situation, his father is such a mystery and long lost secret will reveal in the eye of an innocent young boy. Nuri's mother died in his early years and he lived with her stepmother Mona and fall in love in an imperfect situation.

Speculation of the death is still unclear and it hangs open in the end. Kamal Pasha el-Alfi is the ex-minister of his time, one of the powerful political icons and become the right hand of their leader. Unfortunately, things become unclear and concluded that he died mysteriously. This time, Nuri lost his father when he needed more attention from him. Whatever happens, it is up to you, readers to entangle the ribbon.

This is a very interesting book; this can be categorized as young adult to support the development of the characters when he was still young till he is old enough to learn his lesson by leaving the dead and to share life with the living. This book is well written and the English might be hard for readers as it represents the ways by speaking of the Arabs. He also included words, Hindu, that is very rare for me that I have to reread it again and again.

This book also repeated parts of it, he keep on repeating the situation every chapter. For example the death of his mother, he mentioned it till the middle of the book or maybe he is hiding the mystery of his parents and so on. But what make this book special to me? Giving it higher than what I thought. It is because, the lesson learned and depicts in the end is more valuable than the other.

You need patience and more than that to finish this book. This is not as boring as what you guys thought, but this is more on the literary part of the story. But for me, the long journey with Nuri and his soul searching adventure is a fun read with me. Knowing people should be content what he had in his life, people died and people stay and we learned lessons from them.

The setting of the story was in Cairo and some part of English land. I can still remember the part where his father mentioned their place that they can see the pyramids outside their mansion or maybe a simple house. It was so beautiful that I want to visit the place.

Thank you to NetGalley again for sharing this book and to venture new authors and lastly, super thanks to Random House Publishing Group for accepting my request.

Review posted on Old-Fashioned Reader .

Rating: Anatomy of a Disappearance: a Novel by Hisham Matar, 4 Sweets

Challenges:
Book #235 for 2011

[Fionnuala]

This book has a great title, and the premise—the abduction of the narrator's father for political reasons—has great potential. There are some good sentences in here too, but somehow the writing didn't ever convince me to believe in the characters or their dilemmas.

[Iman · Rating 4 out of 5]

رشحتها لي صديقة.. رغم حداثة صداقتنا إلا أنني أحب حماسها المفرط وهي تتكلم عن هذه الرواية أو تلك.. لذلك عندما رشحت لي "اختفاء" بدأت في قراءتها مدفوعة بتلك الحماسة وانتهيت منها في يومين..
شيء ما كان مختلفا في هذه الرواية.. حكاية الغياب.. ذاك الخواء الذي يطاردك كلما اختفى من حياتك شخص أحببته لتواجه الحياة دونه.. اﻷصعب الغائبون وهم معك.. حتى تغدو وحيدا جدا..
أحببت سرد قصة ذاك الفتى "نوري".. يتيم اﻷم وهيامه بزوجة أبيه "منى" مرورا بتطور مشاعره نحوها من خالص البراءة حتى خالص الاثم والندم ثم الهروب صعودا إلى البرود والرفض.. كان سردا إنسانيا صادقا غير فج.. ورغم كل شيء تعاطفت مع ذاك الصبي المغترب مع أهله.. المغترب عن أباه بعد موت أمه.. الوحيد تماما بعد اختفاء أبيه... إذ رغم فداحة الحدث أدركت أن ميله نحو "منى" لم يكن حبا بقدر ما هو احتياج لعاطفة تشغل الخواء الذي خلفه موت أمه ومن بعدها اختفاء أبيه.. لا أعرف.. شيء ما يجعلك تتعاطف مع يتيم اﻷم ولو صار ف الخمسين.. شيء تعرفهم به ولو مر ألف عام.. ما أعجبني هو قدرة هشام مطر على أسر هذا الشيء على الورق وفي طيات شخصية نوري.. ربما.. لمحة الحزن تلك في أعينهم... تعاملهم مع الفقد بصمت وانطواء على حزن لا يبوحون به.. اباءٌ غريب نتيجة احتياج لا يرتوي.. تقبلهم للعطف كشيء لا يستحقونه.. لا أدري.. لكنه في النهاية كان موجود ومرتبطا بوجود نوري في الحكاية..
أعجبتني أيضا لغة السرد ﻷكتشف أن الكتاب مترجم.. لذلك من الواضح أن المترجم بارع بالقدر الذي لا يشعرك بوجوده.. كان حقيقة أكثر من موفق ومحترف
تستحق اﻷربع نجمات.. وبالتأكيد.. الاقتناء والقراءة

[None Ofyourbusiness Loves Israel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nuri is a boy whose childhood is a clinical study in abandonment. Growing up in Cairo, Nuri's primary hobby is competing with his father, Kamal Pasha el-Alfi, for the affection of the same woman. This woman is Mona, a stepmother so young and vibrant she makes the concept of a midlife crisis look like a disciplined career choice.

The plot thickens, or rather evaporates, when Kamal disappears from a hotel in Geneva. One moment he is an influential dissident and former royal advisor, and the next, he is merely a collection of items on a bedside table and a lingering scent of tobacco. Kamal's vanishing act is the only thing he ever did with total commitment, leaving Nuri and Mona to navigate a world where the patriarch is a ghost.

Nuri's adolescence becomes a marathon of grief and misplaced desire. He is sent to an English boarding school. He spends his years sniffing his father's old watch and wondering if his stepmother's beauty is a comfort or a cruel joke played by the universe.

As Nuri matures, his search for his father turns into a career in melancholy. He wanders through Europe and eventually returns to Cairo, poking at the bruises of his memory like a tongue at a loose tooth. He meets various characters who claim to have known the "real" Kamal, but their stories are as reliable as a politician's promise.

Disappearance in this novel spreads contagiously from Kamal Basha El Alfi's physical vanishing in Montreux to quieter erasures that shape Nuri's inner life. A father disappears into a police report and a plastic evidence bag, yet he had already been fading into history books, into secret meetings, into a politics that prized strategy over bedtime stories. Nuri's mother vanishes earlier through death, leaving behind alpine memories, fog over Norwegian lakes, and a fourth empty chair at the table that feels louder than conversation. Mona carries her own paternal absence from Alexandria to London, turning loss into allure, as if grief were a passport stamp. Even identity flickers; Kamal shifts from royal adviser to leftist figure, from public man to rumor, while Nuri shifts from child to witness to self appointed archivist of a man who resists containment. Geography participates in the pattern, with Cairo, Alexandria, Geneva, and London functioning as stages where people slip out of sight, reinvent themselves, or dissolve into exile. Libya, the homeland, disappears into Kaddafi's rule of insane terror.

Libya is less a country and more a collection of "pomegranates and palm trees" used as bedtime stories to soothe a grieving boy. For the exiled, the homeland is a place where you are perpetually "ruined forever" by the air you breathed in the first months of your life. It is a sad statement of a nation where history is something mothers try to shield their children from, fearing the burden of hope more than the shame of the past.

Libya appears as a lost world where kings are dragged to the courtyard and shot in the head, leaving behind aristocrats who must spend their exile obsessively checking book indexes for their own names as if searching for proof of their own existence.

The book paints a cynical portrait of a country that exists only in the melancholy silences of its displaced citizens, a place where being brave is the only inheritance a father can offer a son who has lost everything else.

Nuri's cringe obsession with his stepmother, Mona, is a psychological car wreck you can't help but stare at while feeling slightly oily inside. From the moment he spots her in an outrageously bright yellow swimsuit, Nuri decides that 14 years is a perfectly reasonable age gap to ignore. He doesn't just want a stepmother; he wants to wear her as you would a piece of clothing and be a stone in her mouth.

Their dynamic is a messy cocktail of grief and inappropriate proximity, reaching a peak when Mona, possibly fueled by brandy or a total lack of judgment, invites the teenage Nuri to her bed for a bedtime story.

The incestuous vibes are a desperate attempt to fill the vacant city of his life with a woman who looks exactly like his mother did at the same age. In Nuri's perverted jealousy of his father he snidely notes that Kamal has "no more right to her than I did." When they finally share a bed, the "horror and delight" are so tangled that you also want to run to the window for some "air to wash the lungs".

It is a cynical look at how a missing father can turn a household into a strange, competitive stage where a boy tries to fit into his father's shoes by quite literally climbing into his father's place in bed.

Disappearance operates as plot engine, emotional climate, and political condition, rendering love precarious and memory unstable, until absence becomes the central fact around which every relationship orbits.

This slow-fade book explores the idea that a missing person is never truly gone; they just take up more space once they are absent. Nuri remains trapped in a state of permanent anticipation, waiting for a man who managed to leave without ever saying goodbye. In the anatomy of a disappearance, the most persistent part is the void left behind.

Hisham Matar is Libyan. He is the son of an exiled politician. He did grow up in Cairo and studied in Switzerland and London. His father was indeed kidnapped by the Kaddafi regime and disappeared in the 1990s. That biographical shadow hangs over the novel like a permanent weather system. The political atmosphere, the exile, the sense of a father swallowed by a state that pretends not to know anything, those are drawn from lived experience. Is the rest of the plot — the Geneva hotel room, the love triangle with Mona — crafted narrative or frank memoir?

[Ursula · Rating 3 out of 5]

Is it possible to be enthralled by the writing and yet left wanting by the story of a book? Of course it is - and that's what happened for me with Anatomy of a Disappearance. The story centers around Nuri, who is twelve years old when his mother dies. Within a year, his father has remarried a younger woman, Mona. Nuri has complicated feelings about that, at least partially related to his jealousy of his father because of his own crush on Mona. Everything changes, though, when Nuri's father is abducted while they are on vacation in Geneva. The circumstances surrounding the abduction - where he was taken from and why he was there, why he was taken, what happens now - are all part of what Nuri wants to know. However, Nuri is still just a kid attending boarding school in England and is limited in how he can follow up on those mysteries. Also limiting him is the tendency of everyone around him to avoid his questions, or answer with half-truths.

Reading this book is a sensual experience. Descriptions abound of small details: the quality of light, sounds, smells. Nuri is a keen observer of all those things, but he doesn't quite understand people, even by the end of the book, by which time he is twenty-four. I wanted more resolution on some threads but realize that the book's scope is the aftermath of the disappearance, and often in real life we don't get all the answers we want. Nuri's experience is defined by the fact that he's only left with the space his father should have filled and only able to examine the edges of his father's existence. Nevertheless, while I enjoyed the experience of reading the book, I can't say I felt satisfied by it.

Recommended for: people who enjoy beautiful writing, orphans, people who went to boarding school.

Quote: "So old and persistent did Mother's unhappiness seem that I had never stopped to ask its true cause. Nothing is more acceptable than that which we are born into."

[أحمد البخاري · Rating 1 out of 5]

من المؤكد أن هشام مطر يمزح .. ما هذا يا هشام !!


لاشك أن هشام يملك لغة سرد جميلة ومحكمة ، ولا يمكننا أن نصف هشام مطر بعدم الإحترافية أو السوء ، لكن هذه الرواية عدا اللغة التي كتبت بها سيئة بالفعل ، قصة متواضعة جداً ورتيبة إن لم أصفها بالمملة ، بالكاد أستطعت إكمالها ، الأحداث لا جديد فيها ولا إثارة .. عبارة عن وصف مشاعر بين شخصيات قليلة عبرالرواية ، النهاية سيئة للغاية ، لم أفهم ماذا يريد الكاتب وأين هي الرسالة الخفية الذي أراد إيصالها ، القصة نفسها متواضعة ولا تقدم جديد ، توقعت أن تكون هناك مفاجآت في النهاية تغفر هذه الرتابة أو تفسرها .. لكن للأسف لم تقدم النهاية أي شيء ..

[Amina Khalil · Rating 4 out of 5]

تمر أوقات يثقل فيها غياب أبي علي كأن هناك طفلًا جاثمًا على صدري، وأوقات أخرى يمكنني بالكاد أن استحضر قسمات وجهه بدقة".

مع هذه الجملة الافتتاحية؛ يبدأ هشام مطر في نسج نمطًا دقيقًا من الغياب والخسارة، خسارة الأم في سن الثامنة، ثم غياب الأب المفاجيء والغامض في سن الرابعة عشرة، وكيف ستسمر الحياة مع هذا كله؟!

الرواي هنا في هذه القصة هو نوري الألفي الذي فقد والده - السياسي الليبي - في الرابعة عشرة من عمره عندما اختفى فجأءة من شقة في جنيف، والذي يُرجح أنه ضحية عملية اختطاف سياسية، وسيقضي نوري حياته متسائلاً عما حدث لوالده؟!

لغة هشام مطر جميلة، وأسلوب السرد البسيط الذي يعتمد عليه يرسم الأحداث بحقيقة عاطفية ثابتة -حتى غير ملحوظة - مما يترك القارئ يفكر في الأحداث التي يبدو الراوي مترددًا أو غير راغب في لمسها!

هذه هي رحلتي الأولى مع قلم هشام ولكنها بكل تأكيد لن تكون الأخيرة ❤️

[И~N · Rating 2 out of 5]

Когато видя заглавие като това, очаквам хвърляне в ъгъла на стената, затискане и разказване, съчетано с безпощадно разчленяване на пустотата, която едно изчезване донася. Нещо тежко и красиво от калибъра поне на "Тишина през октомври". За съжаление тук не открих нищо такова. Книгата е доста четивна, с всичките плюсове и минуси от това. Четивна е, понеже предимно разказва една относително праволинейна история, без отклонения или усложнения, с не много рефлекси или вниквания. Кратките изречения създават впечатлението, че с остри щрихи, насечени срезове, се надраска скицата на нещо по-голямо, което обаче сякаш не се появява или поне аз не успях да го видя или усетя. Идеята за изгубената майка, заместена с нова от бащата, който в последствие също бива изгубен и влюбването на главния герой Нури (признавам си, че детският му псевдоним от жените около него- Абу ел-Нур, баща на светлината, много ми легна на сърце- и като звучене [вълешебният арабски!] и като значение) в мащехата, звучи интересно, но според мен е представена доста повърхностно. Слава Богу поне с някаква доза финес. Оставяме на страна, че отношенията на момчето и мащехата и влюбването му в нея ми бяха последното нещо, което ме вълнуваше на фона на изчезванията и очакваните от мен рефлексии по темата - е, няма ги.
Романът е анатомичен по един доста деликатен начин- определени жестове се повтарят сякаш циклично, но за съжаление тази цикличност на мен не ми беше достатъчна. Финалната сцета с опита на Нури да влезе в костюма на баща си, ми беше поизтърката като идея.
Изобщо с нищо не ме докосна историята. Един-два цитата ми харесаха и ги споделям по-долу:

Как един младеж ще опознае себе си, ако изискват от него да се впусне в пърната работа, която му предложат? Смирението не се постига чрез унижение.

Налага се светът да бъде наразян на часове за запълване, иначе човек може да се побърка от самота.

[Emily Coffee and Commentary · Rating 3 out of 5]

A short, tense novel about how a loved one’s disappearance alters the course of life. The prose is simple, sentimental, and does well to show how codependency and creating images of people, instead of looking into their true selves, can permanently distort a relationship; oftentimes we romanticize the people we look up to, or are attached to, and in many ways this hurts them as much as ourselves. We loose sight of boundaries and the authenticity of how we see them. A heartfelt read worth exploring.

[Amr Ezzat عمرو عزت · Rating 4 out of 5]

رواية بديعة عن اختفاء الأب والعلاقات المرتبكة بالأمهات. سرد جميل من النوع الذي يشعرك بالحزن والوحشة عندما تصل إلى نهايته. وترجمة خلابة من محمد عبد النبي جعلت من النص عملا أصليا متدفقا.

[عبدالله ناصر · Rating 3 out of 5]

للروائي و الصحافي عزت القمحاوي رأي يؤكد على أن موهبة الروائي الحقيقية مرهونة بالرواية الثانية لا الأولى . مع أن عزت نفسه لم يقنعني لا في الثانية و لا حتى الأولى . من هذا الرأي أقول و بخيبة أمل أن هشام يخطو إلى الوراء . أحببت روايته الأولى غير أنه كرر نفسه تقريباً دونما انتباه فالوالد هنا و هناك معارض سياسي و سيدفع ثمن ذلك كما أن الراوي هنا و هناك طفل لم يصل للخامسة عشر . و كنت سأغفر ذلك لو التزم بالعنوان و الذي بالمناسبة تم تسطيحه بالنسخة العربية مع أن الأمانة تقتضي أن أشيد بالترجمة فيما عدا ذلك . تصورت أن يبقى الأب و غيابه المفاجيء الحدث الأبرز و هذا ما يعفيه من التكرار و إن وضع العمل في خانة الأعمال التقليدية . نوري الألفي ابن الرابعة عشر يستيقظ على مانشيت يتحدث عن اختطاف رجل عربي في مدينة أوروبية و يسعي مع زوجة والده - و التي يكنّ لها ماهو أعمق من التقدير -إلى البحث عنه و تقصي أسباب الغياب . تمنيت لو أن الكاتب تعمق في غموض الآباء المتعارف عليه في كل الأرجاء و كيف يتكشف هذا الغموض و ينحسر لاحقاً مبدياً عن رجال ليسوا بالضرورة كما نتصور أو نتمنى . على كل حال ، الرواية مشوقة و تقرأ بشرط أن لاتصاحبها الآمال العظيمة .

[Dina · Rating 4 out of 5]

رواية ساحرة! اتردد كثيراً فبل قراءة أي كتاب مترجم إلى أن شجعتني رحاب بسام مؤكدة أن الترجمة جيدة جداً وبالفعل اللغة رائقة فلا تكاد تشعر ان الكتاب مترجم وأُحي محمد عبد النبي (المترجم) على المجهود الممتاز.
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السرد رائع والرواية فاتنة تدخلك عالم ناس أخرين بهدوء شديد وترفع عنك هم الأحداث الفرعية الغير مهمة إلى الأحداث الرئيسية المحركة فلا تشغلك عن المهم في القصة وتترك لك أبواب كثيرة مقتوحة لتأخذ منها الحقائق التي تروق لك كقارئ، ومع ذلك فهي لا تخلو من تقاصيل دقيقة لرسم الأشخاص وحبكة القصة.
رواية جميلة ، أنا سعيدة أنها كانت أول قراءاتي لعام 2013

[Tariq Alferis · Rating 4 out of 5]

.مش عارف الشُعور الصح إلى جاني بعد ماكملت الرواية، بدأت قراءة الرواية من فترة وكل مرة نقرأ فصل ونسكر ونرجع بعد فترة وهكذا، الفصول الأولى كانت مُملة، لكن قررت اليوم أنه نجازف ونكمل لعند أخر حرف، والإعتراف بالحق شيء عظيم لهذا نعترف أنه كنت ظالم الرواية بشكل كبير، رائعة حد الحزن، طريقة السرد جميلة جدا لدرجة ماكنتش نعرف أنه مترجمة أصلا، مع أنه الموضوع مُكرر وعادي جدا لكن عجبتني، نوري الشاب يمثلني،..

[Nesma Zazou]

كتاب محبط و قصة مكررة .. لم تحدد الرواية في اي خط تريد ان تسير .. لم استماع ع الاطلاق .. عندما تزور سراي مكتبة الشروق بمعرض الكتاب وفر ثمن هذا الكتاب و أكمل مجموعة عز الدين شكري أفضل .. و ان لم ترغب توجه لنهضة مصر أو سور الأزبكية و ابتاع ميكي

[Aya Mamdouh · Rating 5 out of 5]

أنا المفروض اكتب رائي هنا عن الرواية ...انا لما خلصتها حسيت اني مش استفدت حاجة علي المستوى الفكرى ...بس يسطر عليا شعور وهو المكتوب علي ظهر الغلاف للرواية ..." يتساءل هشام مطر عن كيف نواصل الحياه رغم اختفاء لأحبابنا عنها" وكتشفت ان دا هو مغزى الرواية ..ازاى نكمل حياتنا وجوانا احساس بالفقدان ماحدش عارف يملئ مكانه ، احنا بنقدر وهنقدر نكمل حياتنا مش علشان البطل قدر يكمل ..لا ، لان دى فعلا الحقيقية .
اعتقد ان الكاتب بيقدر يسيطر علي مشاعر القارئ بدرجة تجعلك تنفصل عن الواقع بتأمن بان الروايه هي الواقع وما تعيشه هو الخيال.

[رحاب · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m really charmed. On every page I was torn between turning the page quickly to know what happens next, and slowing down so that I can enjoy it for longer. The language is so intense, so condensed (distilled is a better description), yet so elegant.

[Susanna Rautio · Rating 4 out of 5]

Poikkeuksellisen elegantti coming-of-age -tarina egyptiläisestä Nurista kaksitoistavuotiaasta reilun kymmenen vuoden päähän.

Libyalaissyntyinen kirjailija Matar on kosmopoliitti ja poliittisesti tiedostava. Ehkä siksi yllätyksellisessä tarinassa on upea menneen maailman juureton tunnelma. Kirjan henkilöt vaihtavat lokaatiota, eivät ole kotona missään, mutta ovat napanneet kuin varkain muutamia sykähdyttäviä hetkiä elämänsä varrelta.

Kirjassa monarkialle uskollinen kairolaiseliitti viettää pakolais- ja kaksoiselämää. Koko kirja on salaisuus, ja niin myös Nurin ja hänen maineikkaan isänsä elämä.

Pidin todella paljon. Matar on niitä kirjailijoita, jotka kertovat paljon sanomatta paljon. Upea nostalginen tunnelma tässä kirjassa. Toisinaan löytää kirjahelmiä vahingossa, ja se tapahtui nyt.

[Nada Elshabrawy · Rating 4 out of 5]

هايل

[Magdi · Rating 4 out of 5]

"كان لا بدّ من تقطيع العالم إلى ساعات نملؤها بشيءٍ ما، وإلا يمكن للإنسان أن يُجن من الوحدة".

[Chad in the ATL · Rating 2 out of 5]

When a young arab boy, Nuri, loses his mother to illness, he and his dissident father must emotionally support each other in their apartment in Cairo. However, bikini-clad Mona arrives in their lives, and Nuri must watch as his advances go unnoticed and she falls in love with his father. But when Nuri’s father disappears under mysterious circumstances, Nuri must come to grips with his relationships with his father and Mona while trying to find his own place in the world.

Hisham Matar does a good job of painting the world of Nuri el-Alfi, an adolescent Arab boy living in Cairo whose mother has died and father is an exiled confidant of a murdered King. Matar frames the circumstances of Nuri’s existence and lends emotional depth to him and his longings. Matar’s writing is very readable, in fact quite comfortable. Unfortunately, the story languishes after the initial setup. Anatomy of a Disappearance could have turned into either a thriller or a coming-of-age story, but it doesn’t do either one. Matar stops short of allowing the reader to really understand Nuri and he doesn’t provide depth to any of the other characters. Nuri is an observer who isn’t very observant surrounded by people who don’t say much of anything. So many questions are left unanswered that they story loses any emotional weight.

While Nuri says that he misses his father and wishes he would come back, he really doesn’t do anything to try and uncover any truths. The few nuggets of information Nuri does find out just fall in his lap. While Matar’s writing is lyrical and his scenes are beautifully constructed, by the time we reach the ending, the most important plot question remains untouched and the story concludes with a "twist" that really doesn't have much punch for either Nuri or the reader. Anatomy of a Disappearance begins as a promising seed, but Matar fails to harvest a ripe story leaving the reader to watch it wither on the vine neglected.

[Hannah · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.75

[Hana - هنَاء · Rating 5 out of 5]

الخيال والحقيقة

[Mohamed Gamal · Rating 4 out of 5]

اختفاء هو ثاني عمل اقرأه لهشام مطر ، تدور الرواية علي لسان مراهق يجد نفسه فجأة بدون ابيه بعد فقدانه لامه ، الرواية جيدة في بناءها و سردها و اعتقد ان هشام ممن يجيدون ال��ديث على لسان الاطفال ، و هو من مفضلاتي الشخصية ، على الرغم من ان الحدث الرئيسي في الرواية هو أختفاء الأب لاسباب سياسية الا ان الرواية تركز بشكل رئيسي علي الابعاد النفسية الملقاة على نوري الراوي اعتقد ان هشام وفق في عرض هذا الجزء و لو انني ما لم اجده منطقي هو غياب كامل للتركيز علي محاولة استكشاف شخصية ابيه رغم ثراء الشخصية الواضح ذلك ما يضيع عليها العلامة الكاملة.

[Sherif Nagib · Rating 4 out of 5]

في العادة باتفادى الترجمات العربية لو الإنجليزية هي لغة الرواية الأصلية. لكن ترجمة محمد عبد النبي الرائعة حسستني إن الرواية دي، بأحداثها اللي بيدور معظمها في مصر، كان لازم تنكتب بالعربي أصلاً. رواية جميلة حتى وإن كان عندي إحساس خافت (قد يزول بإعادة القراءة) أنه ينقصها شئ ما لا أعرفه، ونوري بطلها فيه نفحات من أبطال روايات كتير باحبها.

[أحمد سمير · Rating 5 out of 5]

الرواية جميله .. و الكتابة بديعه .. و الوصف الفوتغرافي هايل
هشام مطر كاتب رائع .. و الرواية دى بالذات شديدة الرهافة و الحساية .. سواء في العلاقه المرتبكة بالاب او من حيث العلاقة بالامهات او الامهات المتخيلة رواية جمية

[Gabriela Kozhuharova · Rating 4 out of 5]

Красиво написан роман за липсите – тъжен, меланхоличен и изпълнен със самота. Хишам Матар премълчава повече, отколкото споделя, и точно в това се крие изящното обаяние на историята му.