Celebrated fiction writer Hisham Matar, who is based in London, will be an Ida Beam Distinguished Visiting Professor in the University of Iowa International Writing Program Sept. 18-21, a visit that includes several free public events.

In the residency's sole evening event, he will read from his most recent novel, Anatomy of a Disappearance, at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 19, in Prairie Lights Books in downtown Iowa City, and on a live stream on the UI’s Virtual Writing University.

Other events are:

• A lecture—“Never Believe What a Writer Says”—and Q&A at 11 a.m. Wednesday, Sept. 19, in the Frank Conroy Reading Room of the Dey House, the headquarters of the Iowa Writers' Workshop.
• A brown-bag lunch to discuss global human rights and social justice issues with the UI Center for Human Rights, as part of their Careers for Change lecture series, at 1 p.m., Wednesday, Sept. 19, in the POROI conference room of Bowman House.
• An IWP panel discussion, "The Currents of Migration," at noon Friday, Sept. 21, in Meeting Room A of the Iowa City Public Library.
• An online, interactive discussion and Q&A hosted by the Writing University website. Questions may be submitted in advance.

While Matar claims that the new novel is not autobiographical, it echoes formative experiences in his life. His father, who was once a United Nations diplomat, was kidnapped in Cairo in 1990, managed to have two letters smuggled out of a Libyan prison in 1996, and was last seen alive in 2002. In Anatomy of a Disappearance, Matar asks: When a loved one “disappears,” how does that absence shape the lives of those who are left?

Anatomy of a Disappearance has been named one of the best books of the year by publications including the Chicago Tribune, the Daily Beast, The Independent, the Guardian, the Daily Telegraph, the Toronto Sun, and The Irish Times.

A review in the Washington Post called the book, “A haunting novel, exquisitely written and psychologically rich,” and a New York Times review found it, “Studded with little jewels of perception, deft metaphors and details that illuminate character or set a scene.”

Matar’s debut novel In the Country of Men was shortlisted for the 2006 Man Booker Prize. His essays have appeared in the Asharq Alawsat, the Independent, the Guardian, the London Times, and the New York Times.

In the Country of Men won the 2007 Commonwealth Writers' Prize Best First Book award for Europe and South Asia, the 2007 Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize, the Italian Premio Vallombrosa Gregor von Rezzori, the Italian Premio Internazionale Flaiano (Sezione Letteratura), and the inaugural Arab American Book Award. The novel has been translated into 22 languages.

For accommodations at the Prairie Lights event, contact jan@prairielights.com. For accommodations at other events, contact the IWP at 319-335-0128. For arts calendar and event information, visit the new Arts Iowa website.

The Ida Cordelia Beam Distinguished Visiting Professorships Program was established in 1978-79 with the income from a bequest to the university by the late Ida Cordelia Beam of Vinton.