Summary

The past three chapters have represented a diversion from Matar's main storyline, but in this chapter he brings the reader back to his return to Libya after thirty years; he is now leaving his Uncle Mahmoud's house in Ajdabiya for his hotel in Benghazi. Awaiting in the hotel was Matar's cousin Marwan al-Tashani, a Benghazi judge and the founder of a successful legal NGO called the Libyan Judges' Organization. Matar notices how "the revolution had transformed Marwan... to one of the most energetic and articulate campaigners for human rights and the importance and inviolability of legal institutions" (94). In this role, Marwan staged a protest on behalf of a wrongly-imprisoned lawyer on the steps of the Benghazi Courthouse on February 15, 2011, two days before the beginning of the revolution. The protests lasted three nights and garnished unprecedented support, but it also attracted unwanted attention...