Writing and researching across genres, award-winning writers Hisham Matar and Philippe Sands are fascinated by many of the same things – moments of revolution in history, politics, exile, and the individual lives that shape and are shaped by momentous occasions.

Whether dealing in memoir or fiction, Hisham Matar’s work hones in on universal human experiences – coming of age, longing, loving, and unpacking the idea of ‘family’. In his latest novel, My Friends, friendship and found family are in focus as we follow two young Libyan men coming to grips with the lives they’ve forged in London and the homeland they’ve left behind in the process.

Meanwhile, Sands’ latest, The Last Colony, documents the contemporary fight against the enduring legacy of colonialism by turning the spotlight on Liseby Elyse, a local woman wrongfully exiled from her homeland as a result of Britain’s creation of the ‘British Indian Ocean Territory’.

Through these stories, imagined and real, both writers explore the nature of home and homeland, and show readers what we can learn about ourselves and others when we pay attention to one another’s stories. Together, they take the stage to discuss what intrigues them, what they grapple with, and what compelled them to start writing in the first place.

Philippe Sands is Professor of Law at UCL and a practising barrister at Matrix Chambers. He has been involved in many of the most important international cases of recent years, including Pinochet, Congo, Yugoslavia, Rwanda, Iraq, Guantanamo and the Rohingya. He is the author of Lawless World, Torture Team, East West Street, which won the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-fiction, and Sunday Times bestselling The Ratline.

Hisham Matar is the author of In the Country of Men, which was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, Anatomy of a Disappearance, and A Month in Siena. His memoir The Return was the recipient of the 2017 Pulitzer Prize, the PEN/Jean Stein Award, and the Rathbones Folio Prize among others. His work has been translated into over thirty languages.